


The Shadow On The Sand

by Rheehemoth



Category: Naruto
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Friendship, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-04
Updated: 2015-11-04
Packaged: 2018-04-29 20:32:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 55,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5141573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rheehemoth/pseuds/Rheehemoth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sokkenai Hitori shows up at Suna one day, retrieving her stolen katana from a bunch of missing-nin that were planning to attack the hidden village. The Godaime Kazekage, Gaara takes her in for the night, but when he gets to know her, he doesn't seem to want to let her leave...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Stolen

**Chapter 1 - Stolen**

It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining, although it wasn't too hot, and the breeze was blowing, although it wasn't too cold. White fluffy clouds dotted the blue sky.  _Perfect for some training with my brand spanking new katana_ , she thought excitedly as she walked through the small village that had one of her favourite places in the world. The blacksmith's that was run by an old friend of hers. People were walking around the village, occasionally there was a mother holding or walking with their child, and the father walking next to them happily, or a few young children running around and playing with whatever they could find.

She did notice that everyone had the slightest bit of worry written on their face, and that some of the adults were looking around wearily. She had been to this town many times before, and most of the people recognised her and would usually send a kind smile her way, but there was nothing like that this time. In fact, they eyed her with almost suspicious glances. There was also a few broken doors and windows around as well. She ignored it and kept going.

The blacksmith's was a little bit outside the village, and she was almost there. She could already see her old friend Imono walking around out the front. Now that she thought about it, he looked a little flustered, maybe even a bit frantic, and subconsciously she sped up, wondering if something was wrong. He was a little taller than the average male, therefore almost towering over the much smaller woman walking towards him, and he had pale blonde hair, dirtied with dust and dirt from working all day, and brown eyes that always held kindness in their depths.

Imono saw her walking towards him, and tensed violently, so much so that she could see him do it from fifty metres away. She sped up a little more and when she got there a few moments later, she could see that he looked rather upset. With a confused expression she approached him slowly.

"Imono, is something wrong?" she asked softly.

"I'm so sorry, but the village was raided by some rogue ninja a few days ago. I-I had just finished your wakizashi, and...they took it." said the large man slowly, in his usual deep, gruff voice that was laced with apology.

"That's okay. As long as everyone is alright. Is there anyone I can tend to in the village?" she asked, knowing that there might be injured people around.

"No, everyone is fine. I'm just so sorry that I lost it. I know that you paid a lot for it, even though I insisted to give it to you for cheaper since you are my best customer. It was beautifully made as well. I delayed several other orders to finish it for you in case you came a few days earlier...but -"

"Imono. It's fine. I promise." she said firmly, but with a tiny gentle smile, trying to convince her old friend that it was okay. "There is one thing that you can do for me though. Tell me what you saw."

"Well, come in first. We'll talk over some tea." he invited her in and they sat down in his small kitchen out the back of his workshop where he lived and he made some tea while he told her about what happened.

"I was just closing up the workshop and I heard some of the villagers screaming. I grabbed my axe and ran to see what was going on, and I saw about ten shinobi running through the streets and reeking havoc on pretty much everything in sight. I knew I wouldn't be able to stand up to them, even with your small training that you've given me when you are here. So I ran back to the shop and I tried to hide your order, along with a few other valuables, but one of them found me when I was half way through it." he sighed and shook his head before drinking some of his tea.

"They took some money, a few other katana and weapons I had in the shop and your wakizashi as well as food and money from the other villagers, but no one was hurt." his gaze was inward as he spoke, his mind's eye reeling with the images of the event in question. At least that explained why everyone was a little weary of her. Because she was a shinobi.

"Imono, that's so terrible. I'm sorry that there are some pathetic shinobi like that. They must have been missing-nin, since I doubt that any allied nin would do such a thing. Can you tell me about what they looked like? Any memorable features or anything?" she asked, hoping that she might be able to help out on tracking them down, and also wondering whether black cloaks with red clouds might be involved. It was doubtful, but there was always that tiny reminder in the back of her mind that someone might try to use the Akatsuki's reputation for who knows what purpose.

"Hmm...most of them all wore the kind of clothes that most of the shinobi do and they all looked pretty normal. Nothing really stood out about them, aside that they were strong. I couldn't see any hitai-ite on them either. Sorry I can't be of more help."

"Don't worry about it. With a large group like that, it shouldn't been too hard to track them down." she said and she drank some of her hot tea.

"Track them down? Are you planning on going after them?" he asked, his voice filled with worry. He knew that she was incredibly strong, but against ten of them? Maybe not.

"Yep. I can't let shinobi run around terrorising villages. That's just wrong. And besides, I would like to get my katana and your money and other things back. As well as anything else I can get from them and return to you guys." she crossed her arms and smirked at him, hoping that he would realise that he couldn't stop her.

"Alright then. I know you are probably too stubborn to listen to me anyway. But you don't have to bother about getting the other things back, just get your katana. The village will be fine. And I'll be fine with the huge amount of money you paid for your order, luckily they didn't get that." he said with relief, recalling how glad he was when he realised they didn't take the sum of money that the black-haired woman had given him, stubbornly refusing to pay any less for his work.

"Okay. Well, I'm not sure how long it will take me, but I'm a pretty good tracker and I'll move much faster than ten shinobi. It shouldn't be too hard for me to catch up within a day or two. I'll try and be back as soon as I can." she said as she got up from the wooden chair and walked over to the door that led out to his workshop and the blond-haired man followed after her.

"Just please contact me in a few days, if you can." he said, trying to convince himself that she would be alright. "And Hitori-san...be careful."

She grinned and chuckled. "I'll be fine. Ja ne." she walked off, waving over her shoulder and walked back into the village, planning on getting something to eat before she left since it was probably about 3:30-4pm in the afternoon and she hadn't had a chance to eat all day since she wanted to get her katana and be back at home by dark. She just hadn't planned to end up going on a wild goose chase for a bunch of missing-nin so she could have the katana that she had waited  _way_  too long for.

She strolled up to a small stand and asked for some onigiri to be packaged for her, as well as some she could eat now. The middle-aged woman recognised her, since she came to buy off her every time she was in town. Hitori asked the woman whether she knew anything about the shinobi that terrorised the village the other day, and she replied with a sad voice and downcast eyes while she prepared her customers order.

"Yes. I had just closed up about ten minutes before and I had just gotten home and was about to get into bed when the ninja came into the village. You could hear the villagers yelling in fear before you knew exactly what was going on. It was very scary, but I just stayed inside and hoped that they wouldn't come in. Luckily for me, they didn't. But they stole money and valuables from many of the other villagers."

"Do you know what direction they went in, or anything that might help me track them down?" Hitori asked, as she munched on the wonderful onigiri that the woman had made.

"I don't think you should try and track them down by yourself. Imono-san said that he couldn't stand up to them, and he has had some training from you." the brown haired woman answered without really answering, her tone holding slight worry.

"Heh, don't worry. I'm much stronger than I look." the slate-eyed girl replied, with a soft laugh at the fact that the statement was actually more true than even Imono realised.

"Well, as long as you don't get hurt, my dear. I didn't see what direction they went in, but one of the other ladies said that they were yelling out things about going to a place called 'Suna'. I just assumed it was a hidden village." she said as she finished up putting the other onigiri in the small package.

"Yeah, it's a hidden village in the Land Of Wind. I don't know why they're going there, but from here, it's probably about three and a half days away. So they wouldn't be there yet, which means I'd probably be able to catch up with them." Hitori said, the last part mainly directed at herself, and she stopped eating for a moment to think about her calculations.

The woman tried to convince her not to follow them, but Hitori told her that it would be fine, and thanked her for her concern. She paid the woman and took the packaged onigiri which she put in her small pack for later. Hitori bid the woman goodbye, and strolled out of the village, in the direction of the route she would have to take to get to the Village Hidden in the Sand, thinking about how much she didn't expect this to have happened.

* * *

The Godaime Kazekage, Gaara, was sitting in his office, mechanically filling out some sort of paper work that he wasn't really paying attention to. He was waiting for something to happen that would bring some life and interest to this monotonous day. Even though he very much enjoyed his job, no matter how much work he had to do, it still got boring sometimes. It was certainly surprising that there were actually quiet days in the life of a Kazekage as well.

Usually there was someone coming in, telling him about something or other that had happened in some place that got his attention, or an odd mission that he had to give to whoever was qualified to do it. Either that or Kankuro would be in his office whining about his hangover and getting rejected by a girl the night before. Temari would usually visit him as well, and bring him lunch if she wasn't busy, but today they were both busy, so he hadn't seen either of them since breakfast early this morning.

Since he had become the Kazekage, he was living in the huge house that previously belonged to his father, as well as the three Kazekage's before him. Temari and Kankuro lived with him in the massive place as well, and he wouldn't have it any other way. They always tried to eat one meal a day together, since with Gaara being busy mostly all day, and Temari and Kankuro's unpredictable schedules made it difficult for them to see each other sometimes.

Gaara had become a much more open person over the years, and he was able to have fun, smile and laugh a little with his siblings when Kankuro would stumble home drunk, and trip over something and pass out on the floor where he landed, or when Temari would blush when Gaara told her about Shikamaru coming to visit, which Kankuro would never let her live down. He was still a little emotionally stunted, but being with his brother and sister had helped him immensely over the years. Probably more than they realised.

Kankuro would always be telling him about the girls that asked about him, and telling him that he should start looking for a partner or at least start noticing the opposite sex entirely. That wasn't entirely true though. He did notice the opposite sex. But there wasn't really anyone that grabbed his attention. And he certainly did notice his ever-growing fan base ranging from 12 year old genin and 20-something year olds, and even middle aged women who thought he was 'cute'.

His appearance was quite different than when he first became Kazekage though. The boy-ish features that once made up his face had thinned out into fine-boned features of a very unorthodox looking, but very attractive young man. The brick-red hair was the same but it had grown much longer, despite Temari's telling him to get it cut, as well as the dark rings around his light-turquoise eyes from a majority of his life being an insomniac, a trait that he still hadn't gotten rid of yet. The kanji for love on his forehead was still there as well, reminding him of his past.

_The past..._ he thought as he continued to write mindlessly on the sheet of paper in front of him. He recalled the Kage Summit, and Sasuke attacking them all recklessly, as well as the leader of the Akatsuki, Uchiha Madara telling them about his 'Eye Of The Moon Plan' and him declaring the Fourth Great Shinobi World War against them. Fortunately, this war had been won by the cooperation of the Five Shinobi Villages, as well as some of the smaller hidden villages such as Takigakure and Amegakure, which was now under Konan's command and had come to Konoha's aid at Naruto's personal request.

Many had been lost in that time, but they had succeeded due to everyone's determination. The Hachibi or the Kyubi hadn't been caught, and Naruto had become more mature in his realisation that Sasuke had to be stopped. They met in a battle that would be forever remembered in shinobi history, the likes of which equalling or even surpassing the final battle between Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara all those years ago at what would become known as the Valley of the End.

Another valley, almost identical to it had been created during the battle and statues of both shinobi had been built to commemorate the two participants in the epic battle, which would end in Naruto's victory. It had been called 'Valley of the Beginning', representing the change that it made in the shinobi world. Naruto had fulfilled his promise of changing the shinobi world and had also fulfilled his promise to be acknowledged by the people of his village, and he was now the  _official_  Rokudaime Hokage.

The maturity, strength and intelligence he had shown during those times had shown everyone what a great Hokage he would be, and he was named as such quickly after he had recovered from his fight with Sasuke. Even though it had taken him a while to adjust and come to terms with everything that had happened, he took the job, wanting to continue helping his village and the world of ninja. And despite the face that he was the Hokage, he still hit up Ichiraku for ramen at least once a week.

He abruptly realised that he had stopped writing completely and had been thinking for an unknown period of time a moment before Temari and Kankuro barged in the door loudly, with a faint look of urgency written on both their faces.

"Gaara. We just received news that a small village about three and a half days from here was raided by a large group of shinobi." Kankuro exclaimed with slight seriousness.

"They can't be any of ours. They're probably just missing-nin, trying to cause trouble." Temari said as her and her younger brother walked in, shut the door behind them and sat down to talk with the Kazekage, who was her  _other_  younger brother.

"It's quite unusual that they've grouped together like that. I can't help but suspect that they have some sort of higher goal." the red-haired Kazekage spoke in a soft, but calculating and professional voice.

"I agree. Either way we'll keep a close eye on it and look out for any possible signs that they're causing more trouble. If they get inside our borders and keep doing what they're doing, we'll have no choice but to deal with them." Kankuro spoke up, his tone showing that he could be professional too when needed to be.

Gaara nodded, and they talked a little more over the matter for a while until a chunin team came in to give their report to him on the mission they had just returned from. The two siblings left, and Gaara tried very hard to listen to the mission report, but his mind kept going back to what Kankuro and Temari had told him. He couldn't help but think that something was very odd about it all.

He was certainly correct when he said that missing-nin didn't usually gather together like that. Normally they just stayed on their own and did everything they could to survive. The last time that any group of missing-nin had come together was when the Akatsuki were around, and that was years ago. Subconsciously, he placed a pale-skinned hand over his chest, 'feeling' the tiny void that never used to be there before Shukaku was extracted from him by the Akatsuki.

It's not like he could complain about Shukaku being gone, but it was just that he felt so much more... _empty._  There wasn't that second voice in his head that told him to kill so he could satiate its extreme lust for blood. His two siblings had become much closer to him and they had filled that void for the most part, as well as his love for his village and his desire to protect it. But there was still something missing. He didn't know what it was, since he had never experienced this before, but it was just... _something._

While the chunin team talked, he nodded at random intervals until they left a few minutes later, and he was left to his thoughts. He had finished pretty much all of his work, and he decided to just sit for a while since he usually didn't leave his office until around 5pm and it was only about 4:20. He closed his eyes on the premise of 'just resting them for a bit' and for once, he slowly fell into a very rare and light slumber.

* * *

Hitori was munching on her last onigiri while she ran – a trait that most shinobi had managed to master down to an art – and just wished that the group of shinobi could show up in front of her, bowing respectfully in apology and holding out her wakizashi and everything they stole from the village. Wishful thinking, but she would make damn sure that it happened when she caught up with them. She'd probably have to kill them after though, just for good measure and to make sure they didn't continue to run rampant. They might be in the Bingo Book as well, meaning she might be able to pick up some money for killing them.

She ate the last of the small meal made up of rice and as she continued to run, she began to see the beginnings of the desert in the distance. The actual desert itself never bothered her, with the endless sand and the heat. No it was the fact that it was so damn hard to navigate through. Hitori had only been to Suna a few times over the years, and it was usually just to deliver or pick up some medicinal herbs and any other medical supplies from their hospital. But it was enough to know how to get there, and she thanked her sense of direction and instincts for existing.

It had been about a day and a half since she had started running and she had been tracking the large gathering of shinobi, which wasn't too hard. They were capable of covering their trail for the most part, but not enough for her to not be able to track them. Especially when there was at least ten of them.

This whole thing was just ridiculous. It had taken her quite a while to save up money from missions to pay for the katana to be made, since she insisted on paying a very good price for Imono's great work and it just had to go and get stolen by a stupid bunch of shinobi who would undoubtedly get the absolute piss beaten out of them for this. To say the least anyway.

She just sincerely hoped that they hadn't already gotten to Suna or they hadn't already been stopped by their shinobi, since that would most likely mean that her katana wouldn't be found. And that would certainly throw a wrench in her plans. Not that she really had any plans, but she had hoped to have a brand new wakizashi made when she had the money since the last one she commissioned Imono to make was quite old and she just used it to train with now.

Groaning at the predicament, the landscape slowly began to change as she got further and further into the Land of Wind. Sand was starting to whip around in the air and it was getting even hotter and dryer than before. She stopped quickly to pull a long black scarf out of her pack that she kept in there permanently and wrapped it around her neck, and most of her face as well before she continued.

It was going to be a very long week...

* * *

It was a new day, and Gaara was sitting in his office. Again. It was supposed to be his day off for training with Temari and Kankuro, but here he was. Early this morning, they had received a warning that the large group of shinobi (approximately ten of them) had raided another village and that they were only about two days away from them inside the Land of Wind border. He had decided to send out Kankuro and Temari to warn the villages close to them, and sent out a few chunin teams to some of the bigger villages that could hopefully help somehow, even though there wasn't really much he could do unless he knew where they were.

He read over the note again and it said that some of the shinobi were talking about going to Suna for some reason which they didn't mention. That concerned him a little. If there were ten of them, then that may mean that individually they aren't too strong, or it may mean that they are all quite capable shinobi and that they may be joining together to complete their goals. Either way, they would just have to wait and see what happened.

Without knowing being able to gauge how strong they were, he couldn't just send out a few of his jonin and hope for the best. He decided to send a few ANBU teams to the places that they had already raided inside the Land of Wind borders just to see what the damage was, and send help if it was necessary to do so.

Apparently they hadn't done much damage to buildings and such, but they had stolen a lot of money and other valuables from the villages, and that would take time and effort to restore. He summoned two ANBU teams and told them to go investigate and report back to him as soon as possible. They left and he sighed softly, hoping that this ordeal didn't cause too much trouble. Even though it was causing enough annoyance already.

Temari and Kankuro came back about two and a half hours later and told him about what had happened. They had gone to three different villages that were close to Sunagakure and they had warned the citizens about the group of shinobi, and were in charge of the several chunin teams that had been sent to various villages until they parted ways.

"So, basically they were asking us why we can't just send shinobi out to stop them  _before_  they get to their villages." Kankuro said, while leaning back into the chair he was sitting on and scratching his head casually.

"And did you tell them what I told you to say?" Gaara asked while he sorted out some paper work on his desk.

"Yep. That we can't just spread our forces out so much since we don't know where they are or how strong they are yet and that if they really are coming for us specifically then our forces have to be as strong as possible...something like that anyway." he answered, still talking casually and ignoring Temari's glare at his last four words.

"Okay then. There isn't really more we can do until we find out their plan." Gaara said as he nodded slowly and the metaphorical cogs and wheels in his mind turned as he formulated a new plan. "I would like you two to warn the villages defence about this and tell them to keep an eye out and assuming they get here, I want you two go with the team that takes care of them."

Both Temari and Kankuro nodded once and set out to do just that. He thought about all the paper work and the trouble and organisation that this would require. Not to mention the meeting he would have to have with the Daimyo to explain what happened to the villages, what measures he took against the shinobi, what happened when they arrive and who took care of them etc...all in very close detail.

It was going to be a very long week...

* * *

"Far out!" Hitori yelled to no one as another large gust of wind whipped sand up into her face and hit her body with surprising force. It had been fairly slow going through the dunes, and she felt lucky that she accounted that extra half a day in preparation for this. She was probably only a few hours away from Suna now, according to her calculations and she was frequently looking around her for any signs of the shinobi being past this point.

Unfortunately it was near impossible to follow footprints and scents in the desert, since the terrain was constantly changing and the wind would blow away mostly any scent. So Hitori had to rely on her memory of how to get to Suna and just hope she showed up in time – hopefully a little bit before – the group of shinobi, so she could get her katana back and whatever else she could salvage before heading back to Imono's village and giving back what she had gotten, and then head home and hopefully have a few drinks with Tsunade after she slept for at least 48 hours, assuming that she would actually be able to sleep.

She had barely rested at all since she had started her journey, and the signs of fatigue were setting in, and she had to resort to slowing down her metabolism (since she hadn't eaten anything other than the onigiri she got from the stall in Imono's village), and releasing endorphins and adrenalin to keep herself going. She thanked the stars that she had a serious insomnia problem and it was only the lack of nourishment that was the problem. It would probably be a good idea to stop in at Suna and stuff her face before she left.

Abruptly, she was snapped out of her thoughts when she noticed something on the horizon that  _wasn't_  just a gentle smudging mix of blue sky and vast sand dunes that never seemed to end. There was a blurry black blob right smack bang in the middle of her line of vision. Since there was barely anything else aside sand, sand and more sand around here that it might be, she assumed (and hoped) that it was the shinobi and sped up as much as she could.

Luckily, she still had a fair bit of chakra left since she had a fairly bit amount naturally, although it was nothing compared to someone like Naruto. Her exceptional control over it as well allowed her to use the bare minimum for anything she needed it to use it for, and this came in handy at times like this. And her jutsu barely required any chakra usage since it was a clan jutsu, and it would pretty much allow her to get rid of all the shinobi before they even realised it. It was a jutsu that most shinobi would dream of having. But not in Hitori's case.

It registered with her that the blob was getting a little bigger, and it was beginning to get a lot clearer as well. Within another hour, it was almost five times the size it was when she first saw it, and she could clearly see that it was people, although she couldn't determine much from the distance. It only took another hour for her to be close enough to finally see that there was ten shinobi, and she masked her chakra instinctively. She was now close enough to sense theirs, but she didn't want to possibly give off her location by using chakra to have a quick 'feel' of theirs, just on the off chance that one of them was a medical ninja or a sensor type.

When they were only about two kilometres away from them, she used her jutsu instantly and disappeared from sight. It was a little unstable in these conditions, but she was able to hold it for the most part while her chakra was almost completely concealed. She went into work mode, and continued on her way. After a few more minutes, she noticed that the blob that how now almost completely formed people was getting much larger much quicker than it was five minutes ago. It only took her a few moments to realise...

They had stopped moving.

* * *

"Gaara!" Temari yelled in the hall way before she slammed open the door to the Kazekage's office, and saw Gaara looking at her with wide, confused eyes. "They're nearly here. Me and Kankuro have already sent out our team, but we're going to go meet up with them right now. Okay?" she said, slightly breathless from running all the way up here when she was basically on the other side of the village.

Gaara nodded once, and she took off, not even shutting the door. He was quite concerned and very much wanted to go out there himself, but he didn't want Kankuro and Temari to think that he didn't believe in them to take care of the invaders. He was worried about them getting hurt. He could only imagine their reaction if he told them that. Temari would probably hug him until he couldn't breathe, and Kankuro would ruffle his hair or something equally demeaning.

A few minutes later, he felt the chakra signatures of the Suna shinobi and the chakra signatures of their enemy appear. He couldn't take it any more. He stood up and walked out, already wearing his normal attire since he changed out of his Kazekage robes before because he was kind of expecting himself to go and fight for some reason that he couldn't quite put his finger on.

It only took him a few moments to get down to where Temari and Kankuro had begun fighting the nine remaining shinobi. He began to start releasing his sand from his gourd, but Kankuro noticed and yelled at him to stay back and let them handle it. Reluctantly, he agreed, but kept his sand floating around, ready to block any attacks that could possibly hit and injure either of his siblings.

He noticed Temari stop abruptly as her several opponents all went down in a few seconds. Then Kankuro did the same as the shinobi he was going up against fell to the ground with kunai in their chest, or neck. Gaara readied his sand, very confused as to what just happened, but then a small, black-haired girl with pale skin appeared out of thin air and she began to brush some splattered blood and sand off her clothes.

All three of them stood silently, watching as the girl walked around and inspected each body, before she removed a wakizashi from the belt of one of the shinobi. She unsheathed the weapon and swung it through the air a few times casually, as if she wasn't standing in the middle of the desert with ten bodies laying dead on the ground next to her. Lifting up the blade closer to her face, she looked at it closely and her eyes crinkled as if she was smiling at the weapon underneath her scarf before sheathing it and attaching it to her waist.

She looked around again at the bodies and finally lifted her head up to look at the three shinobi in front of her, with wide eyes and jaws dropped slightly. She nodded once curtly and turned to walk away when Gaara snapped out of his reverie and spoke.

"Wait!" was all he could manage as the mystery girl stopped walking and turned back around with a black eyebrow raised. He fumbled around with what to say for a moment before finally collecting himself. "Why did you do that?" he asked, noticing that she was definitely  _not_ a Sunagakure shinobi.

"They stole my katana." she said simply and pointed to the weapon as if she was talking about something as normal as signing your name on a piece of paper. She began to turn away again, and Gaara's voice stopped her again.

"Thank you for that. We think that they were going to invade our village." he explained, looking directly into the pale-grey eyes of the female shinobi.

She shrugged nonchalantly. "Well, as I said, they stole my katana and I was just getting it back. There's no need to thank me for that. I wasn't doing it with helping you in mind." she said tonelessly as she looked straight back into the Kazekage's turquoise eyes. She recognised him instantly, and she also recognised the other two as Temari and Kankuro, who were Gaara's siblings. He looked away from her pointed stare for a moment, but looked back a moment later.

"Would you at least allow me to thank you as the Kazekage of Sunagakure? Even if you didn't do it for anything other than getting your katana back, you still indirectly helped us, and I would like to thank you properly." he stated diplomatically hoping that this girl would accept his offer. She raised an eyebrow again and tilted her head to the side in thought.

"Sure. Why not? I'm starving and I haven't slept in about 4 days." she accepted casually and began strolling towards them back into the hidden village.

It was quiet until Kankuro snapped out of it as Gaara and the woman began walking past him.

"Damn! That was really impressive! What kind of jutsu was that?" he said loudly, with an awed tone and expression. The woman fixed him with a cool glare that said she wasn't going to tell him and he smirked slightly and clammed up.

The silence didn't end until Gaara had figured out where she could stay for the night. "Would it be acceptable for you to stay in our accommodation usually used for official use?" he asked, referring to the small building that had several nicely furnished apartments that would house ambassadors and diplomats from other villages when they were here.

"I really don't care. Just give me a bed and some food." she spoke firmly, indicating her complete lack of care about where she stayed. "Some sake would go down nicely." she added quietly as an after-thought and Kankuro glanced at her and smirked mischievously. The corner of her mouth turned upwards enough to be noticeable and Kankuro chuckled softly, knowing that she clearly felt like a little more than 'some' sake.

When she went to turn her head to look back in front of her, she noticed that Temari was clenching her jaw and limping a little. She looked down to see a large gash down the side of leg that stretched from half-way up her thigh to half-way down her calf. Stopping abruptly, she strolled over and dropped to one knee next to Temari who looked at her with a shocked expression and watched as the girl's hand glowed with medicinal green chakra and the large cut disappeared within a few moments.

Gaara watched on in silence, guessing that the girl seemed to have extremely good medical abilities for being able to completely heal such a wound so quickly. He made a mental note of it and reminded himself to ask her about it later.

"Temari, Kankuro. Would you escort her to the building and give her the room on the top floor?" he asked, and they both nodded in agreement. "And when she's settled, would you bring her to my office please?"

They both nodded again and turned away to lead her to the building and Gaara went in the opposite direction towards the large building his office was in, even though he was going to take a small detour before he went there...

"So, what's your name? What hidden village are you from?" Temari asked casually, trying to make conversation with the woman. "I'm Temari, and this is Kankuro" she added quickly, before the woman had replied.

"Sokkenai Hitori. I'm from Konoha." she answered casually and waved her hand dismissively before she unwrapped the scarf that was covering most of her face as they walked inside the building.

They both vaguely recognised her from the Bingo Book, but there was also something very familiar about her face when half of it was covered as well. When Kankuro got a look at her without it on, his jaw dropped over her for the second time that day. She was really attractive! She looked like she was around his age at least. Her pale skin contrasted with messy black hair and bangs that fell over her pale-grey, almost silver eyes occasionally. She had a finely structured face, that looked almost elegant and high cheekbones that might make her look a little gaunt in the right light.

Her small, but full pink lips curved into a small smirk when she noticed him gawking and Temari smacked him upside the head when she noticed as well. The blond woman shook her head and walked over to the guy who looked after the place. She was given the key to the top floor and gestured to Hitori and Kankuro to follow her.

They walked up the stairs and Temari unlocked and opened the door to reveal a quiet fancy looking room. There was a nice, squishy looking couch, as well as a large wooden dining table and chairs and the was also a small kitchen. Hitori strolled into the bedroom with her hand in her pockets and smirked happily at the sight of the rather massive bed that was in front of her. It could easily fit three of her on there, and she knew she would get a good sleep tonight. There was also a rather nicely done up bathroom with a massive bath as well as a shower.

She placed her pack down on the bed, and Temari gave her the key before reminding her that Gaara wanted to see her. All three of them left and went up the never-ending stairs to the Kazekage's office and opened the door to see Gaara sitting at his desk with several containers of take-away for them all. Hitori raised an eyebrow and he gave her a small smile as Temari and Kankuro pounced on the food and sat down.

"I wasn't exactly sure what you liked, so take your pick..." he trailed off, and scratched the back of his head absently. She just stared at him blankly, her eyes revealing nothing about what she was thinking. He couldn't help but admit to himself that he felt a little uncomfortable with her gaze. It was like she was looking straight through him.

Her eyes fell downwards and she picked up two containers and a pair of chopsticks and sat right there on the floor in front of his desk and ate as slowly as she could manage until both containers didn't have a scrap of food left in them. She sighed in satisfaction at finally having a full stomach, and mentally congratulated herself for eating so slowly even though she was so god damn hungry.

When they had all finished eating Hitori finally got up and took a seat as Gaara finally remembered that he had properly introduced himself yet. She sat down, crossed her arms and stared straight at him as if she knew he was about to start talking, and he tensed imperceptibly before mentally shaking it off and speaking.

"I'm sorry, I should have introduced myself earlier. I'm Gaa-"

"Sabaku no Gaara, youngest son of the Yondaime Kazekage, and currently the Godaime Kazekage. I know who you are." she cut him off, showing that she really did know exactly who he was. "Sokkenai Hitori. I'm from Konoha." she said just as simply as she had said to Temari and Kankuro and Gaara's expression went from a fractionally raised eyebrow, to both raised.

"Are you really from Konoha?" he asked incredulously and watched as she lifted up her black sleeveless shirt that was a little too long for her to reveal the hitai-ite with the Konoha symbol on it that was being used as a belt. "Sorry, I didn't realise. It's been a very long time since I visited Konoha." he apologised with a small smile.

"It doesn't matter. I don't usually wear my hitai-ite anyway." she waved his apology away with her hand as she spoke. She usually didn't wear her hitai-ite at all, but these pair of pants were a little to big for her, and it was kind of necessary to use something as a belt, and that just happened to be the first thing she got.

He nodded in understanding and briefly looking out of the window to see the sun going down. "Well, it will be getting dark soon, and I'm sure you'd like to get some rest, so I will walk you back to your hostel if you like." Gaara offered kindly, even though in his mind he was wondering why the fuck he just said that and from the look on Temari and Kankuro's faces, they were as well.

"Nah, I'm fine. Thanks anyway." the black-haired woman said as she got up and walked towards the door. She began to daydream about having a nice hot bath before Gaara's voice broke her out of it.

"Sokkenai-san. I'd like for you to come to my office when you've awoken tomorrow, if you don't mind." he asked, confusing himself even more with all these odd things he was saying. Maybe it just wasn't his day.

"Yeah, sure. 'Night." she answered and waved to them over her shoulder and strolled home.

It was pretty lucky that Gaara had actually offered for her to stay the night, because she was dead tired, and was feeling more drowsy now that she had a full-stomach. When she got back to the building, she gave a small nod to the man who was in the same seat he was when she first got there, and walked up the many stairs to the top floor. She unlocked the door, and went in, locking it behind her.

In a matter of minutes, she had stripped out of her dirty, sweaty clothes, and was standing in the bathroom turning the taps on for the large bath. It didn't take too long for the water to heat up and while it was filling up, she took to looking around for something to wash her clothes with/in. There was a door from the kitchen leading into a small laundry room with a miniature washing machine and small clothing rack that came out from the wall and Hitori quickly grabbed all her clothes from her pack aside a large t-shirt she usually slept in (but hadn't need to use since she hadn't slept) and threw them in the small machine and used the powder provided.

While they were washing, she stayed in the bath the whole time, loving the way the hot water relaxed her muscles that were tense and knotted from days of running. She sent a small wave of chakra through her system, getting rid of any lactic acid build-up and just giving herself a basic check-up as she usually did after a mission or training. When she heard the faint humming sound of the washing machine stop, she pulled out the plug and got out of the bathtub.

She quickly dried herself down and threw on the t-shirt and wandered into the laundry room again and hung up her wet, but clean clothes on the small rack. Hoping that they'd be dry by when she woke up tomorrow, she dragged herself into the bedroom and collapsed on the bed.

Knowing that it would take her a while to get to sleep, as it always did, she tried to recall everything that had happened over the past few days that had all seemed to blend into one incredibly long, and ridiculous quest to retrieve her katana, which by the way, was absolutely perfect, she noted mentally. Fortunately, she believed that it was worth the trouble. She remembered first seeing Temari and Kankuro going up against the shinobi after the team they had originally put together were seemingly all injured.

Pale-grey eyes closed as she remembered seeing Gaara's turquoise eyes wide with surprise, and his brick-red hair flowing as the wind blew past them. At that moment, he seemed rather enamoured with her, which had taken her off guard. He wasn't just looking at her like Temari and Kankuro were...he was looking at her as if he was trying to tell her something. What that was, she didn't know, but it was something that looked very strange but familiar at the same time.

It didn't take her long to fall into a light slumber, and turquoise eyes appeared in her dreams...


	2. Insomnia

**Chapter 2 - Insomnia**

Hitori woke the next day at about lunch time. She yawned and stretched happily, feeling lucky that she slept so damn well. Recalling that Gaara wanted to see her today, she got out of the warm, comfortable bed, and had a quick shower before putting on her usual mesh-undershirt, sleeveless black shirt over the top, and a black pair of tight fitting pants that stretched down to her calves. She quickly looked in the mirror, and finger combed her black hair with the various shorter bangs that framed her face, making sure that she looked presentable enough and headed out of the apartment.

She made her way over to Gaara's office, mentally complaining about the fact that she shouldn't have to walk up so many damn stairs so early in the morning. When she was standing in front of the door, she lifted a hand out of her pocket and knocked twice. Hearing a muffled 'Come in' from behind the door, she opened it and her eyes fell on Gaara, who was completing paper work. He looked up at her, and in that moment he faintly reminded her of Naruto.

"Good afternoon." Gaara said kindly, with a shadow of a smile on his face.

Hitori gave a simple sound of greeting and got straight down to business. "You wanted to see me today?" she asked, honestly wondering why the Kazekage had any more business with her. Gaara smirked faintly at her not beating around the bush.

"I was wondering if you would like to continue you stay here for a while longer. I would be glad to let you stay for as long as you please."

"Are you asking me to free-load here for however long I like?" Hitori asked, without letting the surprise show on her face, instead only smirking playfully at her half-joking/half-serious question.

"In essence, yes. Suna owes you a debt for helping, no matter how indirect the context was. And I'm sure Naruto won't mind you being away for a little while." the red-haired man replied graciously, only his eyes showing the faint amusement that he felt at her funnily-worded question, but his expression and tone became more casual when he spoke the last sentence.

"No, I'm sure he wouldn't mind. He has been bugging me to take a break for a while, so I guess I'll take you both up on your offers." the grey-eyed woman huffed faintly in amusement at the memory of Naruto telling her to relax for a while before she had left Konoha a few days ago.

Gaara smiled as well. It had been too long since he had seen his old friend and fellow Kage. "Very well then. I'll let him know. It would be a -"

He was cut off as the door burst open and a random male shinobi began to speak in an urgent tone. "Kazekage-sama! Ashinami-senpai just returned from his mission, and he's seriously injured! He's in the hospital now, but we're not sure whether he'll pull through or not."

"Hai. Please keep me updated on his condition and make sure they do everything they can for him." Gaara replied and nodded once as the man left the room and began running down the hall way, most likely heading back to the hospital.

Turquoise eyes looked up at the black-haired woman standing in front of his desk, and she looked as if she was in very deep thought. Abruptly, she looked up and straight at him for a moment before she spoke.

"Well, I'm going to go check that out, because he's in pretty bad shape. There might be something I can do to help." she said, and pointed her thumb back towards the door where the shinobi was standing only a minute ago.

"O-okay." he stuttered, and watched in silence as she strolled out of the room and he felt her chakra signature head over to the hospital.

When she got into the hospital's emergency room, there was medic-nin buzzing around like flies and all she had to do was follow the ruckus and crowd to find the room that the patient was in. She stood next to the door way and peered inside. The shinobi's chakra was getting weaker by the second, even though there were several medics currently tending to him and doing everything they could to keep him alive. He wasn't going to make it with these canon fodder medical ninja treating him.

Summoning up all the authority and presence she could, she walked in the room and pushed one of the medic out of the way. She held one hand over his chest, that had already started glowing green and the other reached into her back pocket which had several syringes full of her specially made medicine that allowed the body to almost triple the strength of it's natural healing abilities, as well as increase the adrenalin and endorphins output to keep the heart going and block the pain a little.

No one questioned her as she pulled one of them out, flicked off the cover and pushed it straight into the shinobi's neck, then placed her now free hand next to her other one hovering over his chest, which also began glowing with chakra. He had a few severe lacerations on his arms and legs and he would bleed out soon if the treatment wasn't working fast enough. Within ten minutes, the bleeding had stopped completely, and his condition was stabilising. Hitori got to work on healing any internal injuries, which were minimal and just basic trauma and torn muscles, ligaments and tendons, as well as a few broken fingers.

The rest of the medical ninja in the room stopped and stared as Hitori worked, and when she asked for a paper and pen, they all jumped to get her what she needed. She began writing down the exact ingredients and amounts she needed for her specially made medicine with one hand, and kept healing Ashinami with the other hand. When she was finished, she handed it over to the closest medic and asked them whether they had everything she needed. They confirmed that they did, and three of them ran off to get the appropriate ingredients for her.

They returned after a few minutes, saying that everything was set up for her, and she allowed two of them to take over healing the shinobi who was now in a stable condition. She walked out of the room and the third escorted her to their room that held all their medical supplies. There was a small table with everything set out on it and Hitori sighed long and quietly and got to work.

A few minutes later, the door to the room opened, and Kankuro of all people strolled in casually, with an impressed smile on his face. He leaned up against one of the cupboards and watched her working for a minute before speaking.

"I saw what you did...it was pretty damn impressive, jaan." he said quietly, watching her small hands mix up her concoction. "And I thought Sakura was a good medical ninja all those years back when she healed me after I got poisoned by Sasori."

"Sakura will probably be a better medic than me when she gets to my age. I've been doing this for longer than she has." Hitori stated simply, not looking at him since she was making sure she used the correct amount of each ingredient.

"How old are you anyway?" he asked curiously, just finally realising that she might be a little older/younger than she looks.

"I turned 22 a few months ago." she answered, and briefly turned her head towards him, and tilted the side of her mouth up in a half-smile. He smiled back. She was only a year older than Gaara.

"Well, happy belated birthday then. We should get Temari and Gaara to come out for drinks with us to celebrate!" the black-clothed man exclaimed happily and threw up his arms in exaggeration.

"Heh. If I'm only 22 a while ago, wouldn't that mean that Gaara is still too young to drink?" Hitori mused, actually rather enjoying her conversation with the friendly-puppeteer.

"That is true, but he's only about a month away from turning 21. And he  _is_  the Kazekage as well. I don't really think that anyone would say no to him if he wanted to have a few drinks."

"Kudos to anyone who actually would have the gall to say no to the Kazekage. That would be kind of funny to see."

"Definitely. At any rate, you should come out with us. Or maybe I can just convince Gaara to let us all hang out at our place or something." he dropped his head a little and crossed his arms in thought, but quickly raised an arm with his pointer finger straight up. "Ah! We all have the day off tomorrow for training. You should train with us, then we can chill at our place and have some drinks if we aren't too tired, jaan."

"That depends on what Gaara says. You may be his brother and everything, I'm not exactly a Suna shinobi, so I can't really do whatever I like around here...even though I did just heal one of your shinobi and I'm currently making medicine for the hospital to use..." she said with a faint chuckle at the realisation that she kind of  _was_  doing whatever she wanted.

Kankuro laughed as well. "I guess now Gaara is going to feel even more in debt to you."

"Don't say that. He really didn't need to thank me for getting rid of those shinobi. I was going to do it anyway." Hitori admitted in a slightly amused tone, even though she was completely serious. Kankuro smirked at her off-handed comment, clearly understanding that she wasn't kidding.

"It did look like a pretty nice katana, so I don't really blame you. I'd get really pissed off if someone stole one of my puppets. What happened with that whole thing anyway? How did those guys manage to steal your katana?" he asked, his tone turning curious again. Clearly Hitori would be strong enough to make sure that no one stole her weapons, so there had to be some sort of special circumstances.

"Well, I always go to the same guy to get katana made, and the village that he lives in was one of the ones that got raided by them. It got stolen by them just after he had finished it. Just my luck, huh?" she explained, her voice tinted with irritation.

He huffed and shook his head. "That is some shit luck. At least you got it back though."

"Too true. Anyway, this is ready. Could you pass me those syringes over there please?" she asked him and pointed to the many syringes that had been laid out on the table in front of her, but they were just out of her reach. He snorted and restrained his laughter when he noticed but laughed when she mock-glared at him.

She began filling up the syringes one by one with the liquid she had made and put the full ones in the container that was on the table next to where she was working while she continued to converse happily with Kankuro. Within a few minutes, they were all full and ready to be used. Luckily, Hitori had used up every last drop of the medicine and she mentally congratulated herself for estimating so well.

For the moment, she would store them in the supply cupboard and inform the head medic and other top-ranking medics of it's purpose, and give them the copy of the ingredients that she wrote out. She'd probably have to show them how to make it as well as write out the method in detail. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to stay here and help them out for a while. After all, Suna's strong relationship with Konoha would only be natural with two good friends being the Kage's and they were good allies.

"If you're done here, you should come with me to see Gaara. Temari is bringing us all lunch. Then we can tell them all about your miracle working, jaan." Kankuro said with a laugh as they both turned to walk out of the room.

Hitori quickly informed the medic that had showed her to the supply room of the basic function of the medicine, and told her where she had put it. The still shocked nin just nodded quickly and thanked her for her help. The black-haired woman strolled away, and met up with Kankuro just outside the hall way and they made their way to Gaara's office, all the while talking about anything they could think of. Hitori decided that she rather liked Kankuro. He was funny, but took things seriously when he needed to and they seemed to get along pretty well.

Before she realised, since she was having such a good time conversing with the painted man, they were walking through the door to Gaara's office. The Godaime Kazekage gave a small smile at the sign of them chatting happily, and he wasn't as surprised as he expected himself to be when Kankuro gave him the news.

"You should have seen her! First she was just standing outside the door watching, next thing I know she's in there sticking a syringe in Ashinami's neck and saving his life without breaking a sweat! Then she even went and made some of that miracle medicine for the hospital to use!" Kankuro exclaimed excitedly, his mind eye's flashing with what he saw.

"It seems it certainly was a good idea to keep you around. And you have my sincere thanks again, Sokkenai-san." Gaara said, and bowed his head to her.

"All you have to do is  _stop_  with the formalities, just call me 'Hitori' and then you're welcome." Hitori pleaded. She was really never good with being polite and formal unless she had to be, and even then she was kind of scolding the Kazekage right now.

"Of course, Hitori." Gaara said, emphasising the 'Hitori' a little.

Their conversation was cut short when Temari walked in the door holding a bag full of a nice lunch for them all. The blond apologised for it being late, but no one seemed to mind as they all dug in. Hitori only just realised that she hadn't eaten at all that day until she smelt the food.

It didn't take too long for Kankuro to be rambling on about how Hitori had saved Ashinami's life again and Temari seemed rather impressed. She also commented on how Gaara would be feeling more in debt to her now, and Hitori rolled her grey eyes and said that it wasn't necessary since their villages were closely allied, so a Suna shinobi would probably do the same for a Konoha nin. She did make a much quieter comment that the Suna medics were pretty crappy which all three of them only just heard.

"Well, that is true. Most of them don't have much experience and the only medic we had with real talent was Chiyo." Gaara said with a slightly sad tone, remembering how the woman gave up her life to save his own to repay him for sealing Shukaku inside of him. "And that's why I asked Naruto to let you train some of them while you're here." he stated casually, ignoring Hitori's confused stare and continuing to shuffle paper around on his desk.

"You did what?" she asked incredulously. When had he contacted Naruto?

"I notified him of you being here yesterday and I asked him in that letter if you could stay and teach medical ninjutsu and other medical related things to the hospital staff." he answered and turquoise eyes finally looked straight into pale-grey ones.

"But, you didn't even know that I was a medic nin then."

"I did actually. You healed up the cut on Temari's leg, remember? It wasn't just a small scrape. Clearly you had to be quite the healer if you could fix that up in a matter of seconds."

She paused before replying, recalling what had happened. "That's pretty observant of you,  _Kazekage-sama_." she joked, and smirked in amusement.

"Oh, hey Gaara! I was thinking -" Kankuro started.

"Here we go..." Temari muttered, waiting for some sort of crazy idea to come out of Kankuro's mouth.

"- That Hitori should train with us tomorrow, and she should come and hang out with us at our place afterwards." Kankuro finished, throwing a quick glare at his sister who pointedly ignored it.

Gaara looked up to see his brother with a strange glint in his eye, the glint that only appeared when he was up to something. Mentally, he smirked, wondering what he was up to. Kankuro's plans usually kept him amused.

"Sure, I don't see why not. I'll admit that what we've seen of her abilities so far has piqued my interest as to what else she can do." he said casually, his cool voice or blank expression revealing nothing about his curiosity over Kankuro's plan.

"I hope you all realise that I'm more of a close-combat type and that if you let me get close enough to you, then you're done for." Hitori half-joked with a soft laugh, referring to how the siblings were all long-range types as far as she knew.

"Well, we've all been working on our taijutsu lately, so maybe you could show us a thing or two." Temari offered with a smile, having a feeling that Hitori was actually being serious.

"Sounds good to me." she nodded, enjoying the idea of being able to teach/help out the two jonin and Kage level shinobi. "Seems like I'm just destined to teach in this village." she realised with a laugh, and Temari and Kankuro joined in when they had the same revelation a moment later. Gaara gave a small smile as well.

After a few more minutes of talking, Temari and Kankuro left to get back to work, and Hitori decided to go back to the hospital. She had been keeping a close eye on Ashinami's chakra, and he was doing much better, but she still wanted to be near by just in case. And since Naruto would definitely say yes to her helping Gaara out, she may as well make a start on getting to know her way around the hospital and meeting the staff.

Two hours later, she had met the three top medics, which included the head medic, as well as several other lower-ranked nin, and she basically knew her way around the place. She went to check on Ashinami and help out with his treatment as much as she could. While that was happening, she was able to heal him while giving a few pointers to a few of the medic-nin assigned to treat him.  _Two birds with one stone..._ she thought as she felt Ashinami's chakra getting gradually stronger by the minute.

She left about ten minutes later, heading back to her place. Abruptly she realised that she should have gone and reported to Gaara on Ashinami's condition so she quickly made seals for a Kage Bunshin. It popped up next to her in a cloud of smoke. She instructed it to go and tell Gaara about what happened, but be brief. They headed in different directions and Hitori went up the stairs and unlocked her apartment door and sat down on the couch to wait until her clone had been dispelled.

A few minutes later, she got the usual faint tingly feeling, and the memories and sensations that the clone felt came back. It only took her a minute to sort them out until they formed a single memory

_Opening the door to his office and stepping inside, she greeted him casually and sat down on a seat in front of his desk._

" _Ashinami's fine. He should be awake maybe later tomorrow night, or the next day." she stretched while she spoke, and a small yawn escaped through her lips._

" _That's great news. I'm glad you went to help out." Gaara said with a small, happy smile on his face. He wasn't sure why he was smiling because it wasn't over Ashinami being okay, although that was certainly good news. In fact, this smile had been appearing on his face every time he saw the black-haired, pale-skinned kunoichi. Maybe it was just because she was someone new and that she was mysterious._

" _Anyway, I'm going to head back to my place. If I'm going to be teaching, then I should probably come up with some sort of schedule for what I'm going to drill into their heads until they can recite in their sleep."_

" _I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that you aren't kidding." he looked up and saw the shadow of a dark smirk on her face, and the look in her eyes said that she definitely wasn't kidding. "Well, it will certainly be nice to, er, have you around." he fumbled with his words a little. Why was he feeling...nervous all of a sudden?_

_Her gaze became intensely piercing for such a short moment that he almost doubted that it actually happened, and she quickly flashed him a cocky smirk. "What would you guys do without me? Been here only one day and I've already saved your asses twice!" she said laughingly as she put two fingers up in front of her face and disappeared in a cloud of smoke._

Not allowing herself to dwell on the matter, she occupied herself by going and getting some dinner. Luckily the apartment building was right next to some food stalls and she bought some dinner, and went back to her room with it and ate happily. It took her a few minutes to notice – since she wasn't used to the place – but there was a small bottle of something on the cupboard with a note next to it. Confused, she picked up the note and read it and somehow translated the scrawl that was apparently supposed to be 'writing' on it.

_Hey Hitori,_

_Here's that sake you felt like._

_And don't forget about training tomorrow!_

_Temari will come and get you in the morning._

_Kankuro._

She smirked at his gesture, and she thought about how he would probably be a good friend to have. Casual and nonchalant, he may be, but he certainly seemed to know that seriousness was needed sometimes, and loyalty was a good quality for a person to have. She also had a feeling she would get along with Temari as well, since they had quite similar personalities.

But Gaara...there was just something different with him than there was with his siblings. Sure, it might be the fact that he used to be the jinchuriki for the Ichibi, Shukaku, and that he was captured by the Akatsuki and had the beast sealed inside of him since he was a baby forcefully extracted from him, causing his death, only to be revived by Chiyo who was grandmother to one of the Akatsuki members, Akasuna no Sasori. She couldn't put her finger on it, but he just seemed a little different.

While she contemplated, she quickly showered and put on some casual clothing. She scoured the room for a notepad and something to write with, and found one in a draw. The black-haired woman strolled into the bedroom, laid down on the bed and began to jot down some things that she would have to teach the medics here. They ranged from basic knowledge of the human body, all the way up to the exact composition of various poisons and their respective antidotes.

Before long, she had written several pages of notes and it had been at least an hour or two. It was probably late enough for her to try and get some sleep, but since she had slept so well last night, she'd probably be in for a night of tossing and turning. With that in mind, she grabbed the bottle of sake that Kankuro had left for her, warmed it up and with all the stealth and skill of an experienced shinobi, went out her open window, and leapt up on the roof.

The nights here were rather cool, and it contrasted nicely with the sake, and it did it's job of keeping her warm. She looked down at the village in around her and saw the lights shining through windows, the occasional person or people walking through the streets. When it was like this, it didn't seem like one of the biggest shinobi villages at all. It didn't seem like a village that had survived the most recent shinobi war that had almost destroyed the world of ninja as they knew it.

Things had been so quiet over the last few years, and it seemed that Naruto's philosophies and determination had completely changed the shinobi world. There had been no news of wars, conflicts or anything of the sort between the well-known hidden villages. It seemed that even the percentage of new missing-nin had almost been brought to zero. Briefly, Hitori wondered how Naruto was doing. She hadn't seen him since she left to go and get her katana from Imono.

Since Hitori had only entered the academy when she was roughly 10 years old, she had missed out knowing mostly everything that had happened in the shinobi world before then, and when Naruto had spare time, he quite oftenly told her about the history of Konoha and some of the other villages. He had told her about his bond with Sasuke, and everything that Team Seven had been through. Even though she held enormous respect for him before that, it had still sky-rocketed after she found out about everything he went through to protect the people and the village he cared for so much.

For who knows how long, she sat on the roof of her building, long after she had finished the sake and contemplated everything that had happened since she had become a shinobi. It certainly wasn't what she expected to be when she was a young child born in a small village just inside the Land Of Fire border. With a low and slow sigh, she climbed down the side of the building and back into her apartment.

Even though she probably wouldn't get much sleep, she got into bed and laid down and drifted off into her usual half-asleep, half-awake state...

* * *

The next morning, she was 'woken up' - if it could even be classified as that - by the bright sun shining into her room via the window. It was around 9am and it only took twenty minutes for Temari to turn up at the door. She opened it to find the blonde kunoichi holding a few bags filled with various items of food.

"Morning." she said and walked inside the apartment. "Present from Gaara." she answered to Hitori's unspoken question as she inspected what was in the bags.

"Why? It's not like I don't have any money. I just haven't been bothered to buy any stuff yet." Hitori said with confusion, as she unpacked the groceries and re-packed them in the cupboards and the small fridge in the kitchen.

"He thinks he still owes you. And as intelligent, understanding and caring my littlest brother maybe be, he can be so stubborn sometimes." Temari replied, and even though she rolled her eyes, her voice was full of affection for said sibling. "Get something to eat, and then we'll head over to our training space. It's a good day for it too."

Hitori nodded and made a simple and quick breakfast and got dressed in her full attire and grabbed her new katana before they headed out. She memorised the way to the training area, so that she could come here and train for something to do if she couldn't sleep. Gaara and Kankuro were already waiting and both men greeted them happily and Hitori mentally tried to decide who she'd like to fight the most out of the three Suna shinobi.

She caught Kankuro's eye, who was looking at her with a mischievous glint in his eye and he tilted his head toward the field, and without words passed between them, Hitori knew exactly what he meant. Her right hand twitched unconsciously and her left was resting on the hilt of her wakizashi and she subtlety pushed the blade out from the scabbard a little with her thumb, which he noticed and smirked at the sight.

"I was thinking some taijutsu." the black-clothed man said, thinking that it would probably be a much better idea to figure out what Hitori could do in this field before he risked keeping his body in one piece by choosing to fight her full on.

The black-haired woman snorted incredulously at first, but covered it up quickly and nodded once. Temari and Gaara smirked at the exchange and pretended not to notice the look in Hitori's eyes that said 'Kankuro is an  _idiot_ ' that she threw them before putting her katana down and facing off against her opponent in the middle of the large training area.

Kankuro wanted to show Hitori what he could do, so he made the first move. He ran at her at fast as he could, and prepared to launch a fist at her. She dodged each punch he threw easily and blocked his kick that he had hoped would have taken her by surprise. Apparently not. The smaller woman back-flipped out of his range when he attempted to kick her again and smirked before dropping to one knee and smashing her chakra-filled fist into the ground. She had gotten used to his extra height and weight by blocking his last kick, and it was time to crack down a little.

Her opponent almost lost his balance from the shaking ground but used chakra to hold his feet fast. Hitori flickered out of his sight, and he had a feeling that if he lost sight of her during a fight, he wasn't going to come close to winning. She appeared in front of him, and her foot came swinging towards his head almost too fast for him to realise, and he just barely blocked it and ducked to get out of the way of her fist which was flying towards his head. Unfortunately, he was still holding onto her leg with his opposite arm, and she abruptly pulled back her leg as hard as she could, and he let go and went stumbling before she gave him a firm, but swift kick to his rear end and started laughing as he flopped down on the ground.

Temari was instantly in hysterics and Gaara couldn't help but chuckle softly as well. Slowly, Kankuro got up, rubbing his sore butt and shaking his head at how easy it was for Hitori to dispatch of him. She wasn't even being serious and she owned him! He took a deep breath and went back into a fighting stance.

"Again." he said with confidence, but it wasn't arrogance. More or less confidence in himself that he could get better and eventually be much better with close-range combat with her help.

Hitori seemed to notice his eagerness for them to continue, and she gave a small smile before taking off and running at him at full speed. For at least twenty-something minutes, they fought, throwing as many punches, kicks, elbows and knees as they could at each other. Over and over again, Kankuro got knocked down, but each time he got back up, he lasted longer than last time. With a groan at the pain of getting beaten down, he gave up and Hitori quickly healed any damage she had given him.

Gaara really wanted to go up against Hitori and learn a few things, but Temari got up and announced that she was going up against her next before he got a chance. To Temari's misfortune, the same thing happened with her as it happened with Kankuro. Because she was a woman, naturally she wasn't as physically strong, especially when she specialised in long-range combat, but she was a little taller and weighed more than Hitori, which helped her out a little.

Within another twenty or so minutes, Temari wasn't able to keep fighting at full strength, so they stopped and again Hitori took the liberty of healing any damage she had done. Gaara watched her work as the green chakra healed Temari's bruises and cuts. He smiled and stood up and prepared himself to get beaten up. He may be the Kazekage, but since for most of his life no one could ever get past his barrier of sand that had protected him from harm, he had never fully been able to become well-versed in taijutsu. Lucky for him, it wasn't as such any more.

The red-haired Kazekage waited for Hitori to finish healing Temari, and when she did, she turned to him with a darkly amused glint in her pale-grey eyes.

"Well, a week ago I never would have guessed that I'd be here, about to beat up the Godaime Kazekage in a taijustu battle." she said loudly with a mirthful tone and chuckled softly.

"I certainly didn't expect it either." Gaara retorted, his tone also revealing faint amusement.

They faced off, standing several metres away from each other, and they could both feel the curious gazes of both Temari and Kankuro, who were sitting down and recovering from their sparring sessions. They stared directly into each other's eyes, watching carefully for any possible sign of an attack. After a moment, feet shifted almost imperceptibly and they started off at a full-speed sprint.

When they finally got in range and started, Hitori couldn't help but be impressed. She already knew that in battle, Gaara usually just stood still on the one spot and use his amazing sand control to fight with, for defence as well as offence. He must have vastly improved his taijutsu skill from when Naruto sparred with him last, because he probably would have given Naruto quite a bit of trouble now.

The red-haired man didn't use his sand at all, the whole time he was fighting her, and even though it felt odd to actually take the full force of her blows, it made him feel good. He hadn't had a fight like this in a long time, and it would good to have Hitori teaching him a little bit. She was definitely one of the best taijutsu users he'd ever seen and if he was correct, the technique she used to try and throw Kankuro off balance when she was fighting him was done by using her chakra control, which most likely meant that her punches could crush skulls and shatter bones instead of just bruising and fracturing, which certainly impressed him even more so.

Back and forth they battled, and even though Hitori was clearly the better taijutsu user, Gaara was mostly able to stand his ground, even if he was on the defence most of the time. He left himself open for a fraction of a second after blocking a punch, and hoped that she didn't notice, but she did and sent a powerful kick flinging straight towards him.

Her foot made contact with his side and he felt his ribs crack under the pressure of the blow, and he stumbled several metres to the side before wincing and coughing several times while he was doubled over. He looked over to Hitori who had a shock mixed with apologetic expression and she bit her lip with slight nervousness. She honestly had expected him to block it at the last second or something, which is why she kept going.

She walked over to him as he sat down, clutching a hand over his cracked ribs and wincing when he moved. Kneeling down next to him, she quickly glanced over to Temari and Kankuro, who seemed a little amused at her getting in such a good hit on him, as well as her looking like she felt bad for it. The two of them quickly glanced at each other, and used that sibling connection to know what the other was thinking just through their eyes, and they both stood up, and walked off, saying that they were going to get some water bottles and some food for them all while Hitori healed Gaara. They both nodded as the siblings walked off and Hitori sat down fully next to the red-haired man. Turquoise eyes were clouded with pain, and Hitori looked at him with silent apology.

"Could you remove your vest and your shirt please? For something as delicate as ribs I have to make sure that I fix it completely and it's easiest without any clothing in the way." she said professionally, slipping into her work mode.

She helped him remove said clothing items and he winced as he held his arms above his head. With a brief apologetic glance, she yanked the shirt off as quick as she could without hurting him too much and he leant back on his hands and shifted slightly in preparation for her to work...which admittedly took a few moments to start because she got a little distracted staring at his revealed torso.

For a shinobi who rarely ever used close-combat, he was built well enough for it. He really must have been training in that area over the years. His form was toned, but lean and not overly muscular. And from the position he was sitting in, she could almost see the 'V' line made from his hipbones running down into his pants. She started telling herself over and over again that she was a professional and that something like a good-looking man shouldn't distract her, since she had seen a  _lot_  more of most of the men in Konoha.

Willing herself to be calm, she held her hands over his ribs which glowed with chakra. She first assessed the damage, and found out what was wrong and where it was so that it could be fixed as quickly as possible. Luckily it wasn't that bad, but the ribs were fragile and some of the most painful and risky place to be injured. She started the healing process and began sealing up the cracks in his ribs, as well as healing the trauma and the bruising around it.

"Does that feel better now?" she asked after a few minutes, looking up at his face for any signs of pain. His eyes bored into hers when they made contact and he nodded slowly. He didn't look anywhere but in her pale-grey eyes for the next few moments, and Hitori resisted the urge to look away or change her mostly blank expression.

Thankfully, she got distracted by a small cut on his slightly swollen lip and brought one of her hands up to heal it quickly. Her hand was only millimetres away from his face, and from any outside perspective, it would have looked like she was actually being a little intimate with him. The cut faded out, and the swelling went down almost instantly and he sighed almost inaudibly as she kept her hands where they were and sent chakra through the rest of his system to look for and heal any other signs of damage or injury, if need be.

His eyes closed at the soothing sensations of being healed and the corners of his mouth turned upwards faintly to form a small smile. Masochistic as it may be, but he never really minded being hurt a bit these days. He hadn't experienced any sort of pain for most of his life, and it was almost refreshing to have that feeling. It made him feel alive.

Unconsciously, he leaned forward so that Hitori's hands would actually touch him, and she only let her surprise show by the momentary widening of her eyes. She kept healing his ribs, but she had completely finished healing his lip, but for his sake her hand stayed where it was, cupping his face since it seemed to comfort him a little. This was very, very odd for her, but she just pushed the 'What the hell?!' thoughts out of the way, and concentrated on healing him.

A few minutes later, they both heard the sounds of Temari and Kankuro laughing and talking near by. Said people came around the corner holding a bag each, presumably filled with water and food and they both nearly dropped the bags at the sight in front of their eyes. They hadn't expected Gaara to be shirtless, with Hitori's hands on him and Gaara looking like he wanted nothing more than having Hitori touching him.

With all the nonchalance she could muster, she quickly inspected Gaara's ribs and then tapped him on the shoulder and told him that he was fine now. His eyes snapped open at the feel of her warmth leaving his side, and he nodded before putting his shirt and vest back on. Hitori wandered over to Temari and Kankuro, who tried to look casual, but failed (even though Hitori didn't bother pointing it out or making it obvious) and handed her a bottle of water, and a small container of food. Gaara came over after a moment as well, and all four of them enjoyed their early lunch.

For the rest of the day, they all took turns sparring, and training in ninjutsu, taijutsu as well as a bit of genjutsu and resting. The three siblings always loved this day, since it was the only time that they were definitely able to spend together, where as most other days were much more unpredictable. Hitori fit in well with them, even if she hadn't known them for even a week yet.

Her and Kankuro were the jokers, and neither of them had any qualms about ripping each other off. With Temari, they were the usually angry women who smacked Kankuro upside the head when he gawked at an attractive woman. But Gaara and her, they were the more quiet, melancholy, even philosophical ones. All three of them were already this close to Hitori and it had only been one day of hanging out, and training. She felt comfortable around them, and they felt the same towards her. Maybe except Gaara, who seemed to get a little nervous whenever she was standing or sitting next to him (something that didn't go unnoticed by his older brother and sister or Hitori).

When they were all officially too exhausted to keep training, the sun had started to go down, and they all headed back to the Kazekage's home, as planned. Temari cooked up a nice big dinner for them all, with a little bit of help from Gaara and they all scarfed it down before settling down in the big living room, and listening to Kankuro complaining about him being so damn tired that he couldn't be bothered getting up and bathing or even walking to bedroom, but shut up after Temari pegged a pillow at his head.

They sat/laid down for a while, just laughing and joking tiredly, enjoying the simplicity of each other's company. Soon enough, the faint sound of snoring from the puppeteer became louder, and the blonde kunoichi swiftly joined him in sleeping. Gaara was quiet as well, and so Hitori went and picked up Temari and took her into her bedroom and laid her down on her bed.

She did the same for Kankuro, came back out, and kneeled down in preparation to pick Gaara up when his voice made her tense and almost yelp in fright, though she just barely managed to bite it back.

"I'm not asleep." his voice calm and cool, even though he sounded rather tuckered out. He never opened his eyes, or shifted even the slightest bit aside from his mouth moving as he talked.

"Heh, sorry." she mumbled awkwardly, and stood up and went to walk away but his voice stopped her.

"Why don't you just stay here instead of walking over the other side of the village?" he asked casually, even though there was a small voice in his head saying  _'Why the hell are you asking that?'_  he pushed it aside and waited for her answer without opening his eyes.

"Uh, yeah sure. To be honest, I really can't be fucked going all the way back to my place. I'll just borrow something of Temari's to sleep in." she admitted and walked back to Temari's room that she had only found earlier by guessing the right hallway and opening the first door which just so happened to be her room.

She silently walked in and quietly rustled through some draws and pulled out a small, black, but kind of sexy lacy night dress. Temari was quite a bit taller than Hitori, who stood only a little shorter than Gaara and she guessed that it was probably a little too short for the blonde woman, which explained why it looked basically brand new. She yoinked the dress out of the draw completely and wandered out of her room and shut the door behind her. Gaara came up behind her and even though she didn't know why, it made her a little anxious.

"You can come and use my bathroom. I would suggest using Temari's, but that would probably wake her." he said calmly, but inside he was having a battle with his 'Logical' side and his 'Socially acceptable' side. The former bringing up the concept of him being correct, that Temari probably would wake up if Hitori used her bathroom, but the latter saying that it wasn't exactly normal for a guy to ask that without having some sort of hidden agenda.

"Good idea." Hitori replied equally as casually, honestly not caring about using the Godaime Kazekage's own personal bathroom. She knew that he wasn't going to try anything on her... the dude got a little fidgety when she ruffled his hair today! So there was no chance of that, and it wasn't like she couldn't kick his ass into next month if he did try anything.

They walked into his room and through to his bathroom, and Hitori went in there and came out roughly twenty minutes later, feeling fresh and clean, dressed in the little black number she had borrowed from Temari. Gaara was already tucked up in bed, even though he knew he wouldn't sleep for a while and he still had to have a shower himself.

He got a momentary glimpse of the black-haired woman who had just opened his bathroom door, and snapped his eyes shut immediately. Whatever he thought he just saw, was a damn nice sight and he didn't want to be blatantly gawking at his guest. She thanked him and he told her that the spare room was right next to his down the hall and that she could help herself to anything in the house. Thanking him again, they bid each other goodnight and she left and walked down the hall, opening the door to the spare room, and smiled at how nice it was.

She shut the door behind her and strolled over to the king-sized bed. It was even bigger than the one in her apartment, and she huffed in amusement when she thought that it would be no less than the best for the Kazekage's house. If only her place back in Konoha was this nice then maybe she wouldn't go on so many damn missions. She flopped down on the large bed, then slowly shuffled up to lay her head down on the squishy pillow. After a moment, she lazily lifted her body up and pulled the covers over herself and got comfortable.

Maybe she would get a decent sleep tonight...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter glossary -  
> 1\. Ashinami - Step, pace (Got nothing to do with his character or the story line, it's just a kinda cool name)  
> 2\. Akasuna no Sasori - Sasori of the Red Sands.


	3. Confusion

**Chapter 3 – Confusion**

* * *

The next morning, Gaara was roused out of his light sleep by the faint creaking sound of his bedroom door opening. His black-ringed, turquoise eyes cracked open to see Hitori's head popping in and she leant over to place what looked a piece of paper on the desk that was just a little bit inside the doorway. When the door suddenly creaked even more, she winced silently and looked over to him and almost yelped, seeing that he was awake.

"Heh, sorry. I was just leaving a note to tell you I'd left to go to the hospital. Ja ne." she scratched the back of her head awkwardly and began to slide back through the door.

Unfortunately, this was the worst state she could catch him in. Not just because after she had left his room last night, he had actually gathered up the energy to shower, but he didn't bother putting clothes on, so he was quite naked at the moment, aside from the blanket covering him. No, it was because when he was 'woken' and got to that proverbial half-asleep, half-awake state that you're in straight after waking up, was almost tripled with him since he barely slept. The one where whatever you said or did had no thought process behind it, and usually no logic, or common sense either. So usually, it made absolutely no sense at all.

"After you finish, come back here. With your things." he mumbled, mostly muffled by half his head being squished in the pillow. Even after he said it, he didn't really realise what he said, instead just rolled over and sighed tiredly.

Hitori rose an eyebrow and the rest of her face slowly contorted with confusion as she tried to understand what he meant. She shook her head and didn't bother, only making a small sound of acknowledgement before slipping back out and shutting the door behind her.  _He must sleep as lightly as I do..._ she thought as she absent-mindedly walked down the hall way and straight out the front door.

She needed to quickly run home and change before she went over to the hospital, and it only took her a few minutes to go there, and throw on some clean clothes before heading over to the hospital. The faint smell of blood, disinfectant and everything other scent that defined shinobi hit her nostrils as soon as she opened the door and much to her surprise she was greeted directly by the head medic, who had a bright smile on her face.

Feeling very much out of place to be the centre of attention, Hitori walked through the halls to Ashinami's room. He had been transferred from the intensive care ward to the regular part of the hospital where most shinobi went to heal from injuries they got on missions last night since his condition had improved so much.

The door to his room was open and she strolled in to find him awake and drinking some water. Instantly, he recognised the description that his assigned medic had given of the amazing medic nin that had casually strolled on into his room and saved his life. Funnily enough, his medic was a male and he had been telling him since he woke up early this morning about how attractive she was. And he was  _so_  right. There was 20 bucks gone.

A small smirk came across her face seeing him recovering so quickly and she walked fully in the room and closed the door behind her.

"How are you feeling?" she asked him nonchalantly with a blank expression, and crossed her arms as she leant up against the wall.

"I'm not too bad...all thanks to you." his eyes landed on her pale-grey orbs and she smirked again.

She pushed off the wall and walked over to his bedside and her hands hovered over his chest, glowing green to check out how he was  _really_  doing. Luckily enough, he was actually healing up very well. The medicine had worked well, and it would be in his system, helping him heal for a few more hours. They made basic small talk about what actually happened while she treated him when he was first admitted as well as his various injuries, and he actually seemed like a pretty decent guy, if a little shy.

He had soft brown eyes, and dark brown, jaw-length, messy hair and tanned skin. All in all, he was pretty generic looking, but he still had a quirky charm to him, with his deep but melodic, almost sing-song voice and funny jokes. Surprisingly enough, he actually managed to get a chuckle out of her. When he asked her why he'd never seen her around before, she told him that she was actually a Konoha shinobi and that she was helping out the hospital here so they could be more efficient and more skilled.

It wasn't that odd for a Konoha shinobi to be here, considering that their villages were closely allied, but for them to actually be fully working in the hospital was kind of random. Either way, he was glad to know that she was here, since if she wasn't, he would probably be dead right now.

When the daily treatment was over, she told him that she'd come back and check on him before she left today, and with a soft laugh said that she had to go play 'Doctor' with the hospital staff. He smiled happily and chuckled at her making a joke and said that he couldn't wait until her next visit. She shut the door behind her, and went to go and talk to the head medic.

* * *

"Mornin' Gaara" Kankuro said tiredly as he strolled into the kitchen and dried his hair with his towel. He only got out of the shower several minutes ago since he didn't get to have one last night.

Gaara only replied with a small smile. Even if he didn't always talk too much, his siblings both knew that it was just his way and that he cared about them without him expressing it. The brown-haired man sat down at the dining table, and watched as Gaara brought over several plates of food for the three, expecting their sister to be out any minute. It took him a moment to build up the courage to speak, but Kankuro already knew that he wanted to say something from his body language, and just kept eating until he was ready.

"K-Kankuro...can I ask you something?" Gaara said awkwardly, not really sure how to go about this.

"Sure. Go right ahead." the man replied, trying to act as casual as he could for his brother's sake, even though on the inside he was absolutely  _dying_  to know what had gotten Gaara so confused that he had to talk to his older brother about it.

Before he could find out what it was, Temari came out from her room, also freshly showered, and interrupted. "Don't start without me. I want to know what's going on too." she half-joked as she sat down and ruffled her younger brother's red hair affectionately.

"It's about...Hitori...I feel...odd around her." he stated with confusion in his usually cool and unwavering voice.

Temari and Kankuro glanced at their brother briefly, and looked at each other before looking back at Gaara again. He had such a different look on his face. Usually it was just indifferent, blank, or with a hint of care when he looked at either of them. But now, it was quite open, and they could both see the confusion, but curiosity in his eyes.

"What do you mean...odd?" Temari asked him, hoping that he would be able to elaborate on his kind of ambiguous words.

"Well...I'm not really sure. I say and do things I usually wouldn't around anyone else. It's a little unsettling." he mused and looked down at his plate in thought.

Even after all the years with his siblings, he was still a little emotionally stunted, and it was usually much worse around anyone other than Temari and Kankuro. At work, he was professional, but fair and noble. At home, he was quiet but caring, even if he didn't show it as much as most other's would to their family. But around Hitori...it was different. He had seen people being shy before, but never really felt it himself.

"Maybe you've just got a crush on her." Kankuro shrugged, speaking with half his mouth full.

Gaara looked up at him when he said this. He sort of knew what Kankuro meant by a 'crush' theoretically, just hearing it from passing conversation, but he wasn't exactly knowledgeable in that area.

"What does that actually mean?" he asked, hoping that they could both elaborate on the slightly unfamiliar term for him.

"Basically, it usually means that you kind of like someone, but you don't really know them well enough to have proper feelings for them." Temari explained sagely.

"Kind of like when Kankuro gets drunk and tries to chat up girls at a bar?" Gaara teased a little, but he was kind of being serious as well.

"No, it was more like when Kankuro had a 'crush' on that blonde chunin girl a few months ago." she said, ignoring said man's mock-glare. Didn't they realise that he was sitting on the opposite side of the frigging table listening to what they were saying about him!?

"Yeah, like that. Or like when Temari first got to know Shikamaru on that ambassador's thing to Konoha years ago." the dark-haired man said with an amused smirk, finding Temari's faint blush and visible tensing hilarious.

At this point, a large – but mostly playful - argument usually would have broken out by now, but they reigned in their temper for the sake of their youngest brother, who was just finally starting to have women problems only a little over two months away from his 21st birthday. They were both happy to see that he was finally acting like a normal young adult, no matter how late it was.

"I see..." he said under his breath, understanding their reasoning, and also noticing that they didn't start arguing, which he was grateful for. This was all very new to him, and he just wanted some sort of clarity on the matter. "So...what should I do?" he asked innocently, looking up at the two siblings that were beaming down at him, smiling happily.

"You should try getting to know her a little more. Since you seem to know what a crush is now, you'll probably know if you really start to like her. And if not, you can just talk to us again little brother." Temari answered, still smiling.

The Kazekage nodded, and they all continued with their breakfast. Since today was Sunday, most of the time they didn't do much aside the little bits and pieces of work they didn't do throughout the week, and Temari mentally decided to go and visit Hitori later on in the hospital to see if Hitori might feel the same way about Gaara...

* * *

Hitori had been working all morning, and she was getting pretty bored now that she suddenly had nothing to do. Since it was so quiet, she was able to show the top three medics how to make her 'special medicine', including them trying to make it themselves until they got it just right. Luckily it wasn't too hard to make, thanks to her making as simplified as possible when she first came up with it, so it only took a total of an hour and a half for them to complete that task.

For the next three hours, Hitori just wandered around the hospital, helping out with anything and everything possible and giving as many pointers to the younger (and older) members of the hospital staff that she could. They all seemed to look up to her to an extent which was a little odd, but it was nice to know that she was able to help out, even if it would take a while for all her help to fully sink in.

She strolled around, humming a random tune and peering in various patient's rooms. She kept going, and eventually got back down to the entrance where she usually stayed, since it was where people were admitted to the hospital, and right next to the ICW (Intensive Care Ward) so that if someone crashed or was admitted in a serious condition, she could be there in all of a second or two. When she came around the corner, she spotted a blonde kunoichi talking with one of the staff, who noticed her and pointed her out.

"Hitori! I was just asking where you were." Temari said with a happy smile. She couldn't completely erase the curiosity from her face, and it didn't get past Hitori's sharp eyes.

"I was just wandering around. What are you doing here anyway?" the black-haired woman asked, walking over and sitting down in a seat behind the reception desk. Temari sat next to her.

"Ah, I just didn't see you this morning for breakfast. I half expected you to come over." she answered and waved her hand in the air dismissively. Hitori raised an eyebrow at her words. Apparently Gaara hadn't told his siblings that she had slept at their place last night.

"Gaara didn't tell you I just crashed in the spare room? Oh by the way, I borrowed one of your little night dress things to sleep in, and I put it in the laundry."

"No, he didn't. Oh well. And that's cool, thanks for putting it in the laundry." she did a good job of hiding the shock from her face.

_Gaara really must like this girl if he told her to stay overnight. That is certainly proof of his telling us that he's saying things he usually wouldn't..._ Temari thought as the two women made casual conversation. Temari also told her that Gaara had just received a reply from Naruto.

"Yeah, we got it like an hour ago. Naruto said that it's cool for you to stay, and that he's glad that you can help out. And he also said that he actually had an idea about you being like a physical connection between Suna and Konoha while you are here." the blonde informed Hitori as she raised an eyebrow.

"What does he mean by that?"

"Um, say if Gaara has to make a decision about something that might affect Konoha in some way, you can help out. That's just what I got from what Naruto says anyway. I'm sure you or Gaara would be able to understand what he wrote better than me."

"Heh, probably." Hitori admitted with a faint chuckle. It didn't really surprise her that Naruto would say something like that. She had helped him out several times when Shikamaru or Sakura (since they both helped him out, Shikamaru because he was smart, and Sakura because she was around the Godaime Hokage, Tsunade a lot) were out on a mission and she probably wouldn't be too bad at doing something like that, even though she really didn't like doing political and diplomatic stuff. But if Naruto said that she should do it, then she couldn't really say no to him.

"Ah, fair enough. Even though it's political shit, I can't really say no to the Hokage, can I?" she decided with a shrug. It couldn't be too bad.

"Really? He also said that 'there might be some resistance from you about doing such a politically involved job'." Temari teased with the blue-eyed Hokage's own words.

"Yeah, but I got to admit, I don't mind staying in a fancy apartment and not having to do so many missions for once. I usually only did them because I got bored when I was at home for too long. This will just give me something else to do while I'm here." the black-haired woman spoke off-handedly, even though she was completely serious.

"Well, now you've got the hospital and some 'political shit' to keep you busy." the older woman said with a soft laugh. Her dark-green eyes became a little more serious as she remembered the other reason for her being here. "Hey, random question. What do you think of Gaara?"

"Gaara? Um, I think he makes a great Kazekage, and he seems a bit socially awkward, but it's not really that surprisingly with his past and such." she finished abruptly, not being able to think of anything else to say, and also contemplating why Temari would ask such an odd question.

"Fair enough." the blonde accepted her answer, and held her tongue from telling Hitori that Gaara had a crush on her. Normally, she wouldn't hold back, but when it was her little brother, she would give it a bit of time to see where things went.

"By the way...he was like half-asleep when he said it, but Gaara kind of told me to come back to your place after I finished here and to bring all my stuff. Could you interpret that for me?" Hitori asked, referring to what had happened this morning when she was trying to leave a note for Gaara.

"Really?" Temari replied incredulously, and huffed when the other woman nodded. "Well, you are like helping him out a lot, so I'm sure he is asking you to come stay with us while you're here to thank you."

"So, should I? Or should I just leave it since he was like dead to the world when he said it."

"Yeah, totally. We'd love to have you around, and it would save a lot of time and effort if you were working with Gaara on something. It's like five minutes closer to the hospital too. And you can use my bathroom since the spare room isn't an en-suite." Temari said, actually feeling really happy about having a new friend around. She really liked Hitori even though they'd only met her a few days ago.

"Alright, awesome. I'll probably be  _home_  at around 5-ish then." she replied as her grey-eyes lit up at the prospect of staying in the nice room she had actually gotten a little bit of sleep in the previous night.

"Cool. Anyway, that's really all I was here for, and I'm going past your apartment building now on the way back, so I'll save you the trouble and get your stuff for you." the blonde replied and Hitori nodded in agreement and thanked her quietly as she got up and waved over her shoulder as she walked out of the hospital's front doors.

Hitori sighed happily and leant back in her seat. Seems like being here would be a bit of fun after all...

* * *

At around 4:55pm that evening Hitori began strolling down the stairs to get to the bottom floor. The woman had went to visit Ashinami as promised, but since he was asleep she was trying to sneak out before someone asked her something. It was almost like she had become the head medic, and she kind of felt bad for the  _actual_  head medic. They had also given her a pager, so that they could let her know when they needed her in case of an emergency.

She came around the corner to walk in the lobby to see another child of the late Yondaime for the second time that day, except this was the child that had replaced him as the Kazekage. Most of the staff looked a little shocked at the Godaime Kazekage standing in the hospital's entrance and he seemed to be looking for something...or someone.

Turquoise eyes of said man noticed black hair, and pale skin from his peripheral vision and he turned his head to see Hitori looking at him with a slightly incredulous expression. He gave her a small smile, which she returned, if a little awkwardly and walked over to him.

"What are you doing here? We should try for a hat trick and wait until Kankuro shows up." she said with a soft laugh but being half-serious.

"I'm here to pick you up. I walk right past here to go home every day, so I thought I'd come and get you." he replied with his usual smooth and calm voice. His faint nervousness hadn't gotten too bad yet, so he was able to think normally and not make a fool of himself so far. "And I'm guessing that Temari did come and see you?" he said, guessing from her earlier comment that his sister had dropped by to tell Hitori about Naruto's letter.

"Yeah, she came by a little after lunch. She told me about Naruto's proposal as well."

"What do you think of it?"

"He knows that I'm not really interested in political stuff, but I guess it wouldn't be so bad. And not every Konoha shinobi gets to work closely with the Godaime Kazekage either." she said and leaned up towards him a little unconsciously, just trying to make her point more.

Gaara turned away to look at the ground in front of him as he pushed off the wall he was leaning on and walked through the hospital doors. Thankfully it just looked like they were leaving, and Hitori didn't seem to notice that a light blush had graced his pale features when she had gotten closer to him. His red hair came down over his face and hopefully covered it, and as they walked out of the hospital and towards home, they made conversation about what she had been doing at the hospital during the day.

The professional talk distracted him from his earlier thoughts and nervousness, and he smiled happily about Hitori being so kind as to help him out by training the medics. As they walked through his front door, and into the living room he thought about he was already so immensely indebted to her and she had only come into his life and his village a few days ago.

She abruptly gave him a bright smile, and he also smiled just as brightly, if a little smaller. The change in expression took her off guard and she examined it, as if she was trying to memorise his smile before it faded. He noticed her looking at him so intently, and without an ounce of logic coming into his mind at all, he gently pulled her into an awkward, but kind and warm embrace. After a moment, he collected himself, but didn't let it show.

"Thank you so much...for everything that you're doing for Suna." he spoke quietly, almost in a whisper, trying to use that as an excuse for him hugging her, instead of his sudden lapse in common sense and increased emotional retardation, to put it bluntly.

He felt her stiffen, and awkwardly pulled back before proceeding to scratch the back of his head sheepishly with an apologetic expression. What the hell was he doing? Was this the result of his 'crush'? He certainly never expected for him to act so out of character around Hitori.

"Uh, sorry. I'm just extremely grateful to you. You didn't really have to agree to do all of this but I'm glad that you did." the red-haired man nodded once and turned to walk away and kept going when he didn't hear her say anything to stop him.

If he turned back to look her, he would have seen her mouth pulled into a shadow of a smile with faint blush covering her cheeks...

* * *

Later that night, after everyone had gone to bed, Hitori was sitting on the floor, leaning up against her bed. She wasn't able to sleep. No surprise there, but it wasn't just because of the usual things. She was terribly confused about Gaara's behaviour. One minute, he was professional and normal, then next he was hugging her! It made no sense.

Summoning up resolve and courage, she got up and went to walk towards him room to confront him about what the deal was, but chickened out and dramatically spun around and walked to the room of the only other female in the house, Temari. She lightly tapped on the door, and got a lazy groan in response, which sounded something like 'Come in'. She walked in, and quietly shut the door behind her.

She scratched the back of her head awkwardly as she strolled over to Temari's bedside. "Sorry for waking you."

"Nah, it's fine. I wasn't even fully asleep. I got that much sleep on Saturday night that I'll probably over sleep if I sleep now anyway." the blonde said as she sat up and moved over so Hitori could sit down. "What do you need?"

"It's about Gaara...he's been acting...odd." the pale-skinned woman stated confusedly, her gaze inward as she recalled the events that unfolded only several hours ago. Usually most things like this just wouldn't bother her, but since she had to be around Gaara even more now that she was staying with them, she didn't want to offend him by pointing it out.

"Really? What's he been doing?" Temari questioned, her tone level and unwavering, but if there was any light in the room, Hitori would see the hint of a smile on her face at the prospect of Hitori actually noticing Gaara's change.

"Well, he just seems a little on edge around me. At first I thought that it was because he might not fully trust me, which is fair enough. We're shinobi, it's normal. But then, like a few hours ago, he...he... _hugged me._ " she whispered the last part, just to emphasise her extreme confusion about the whole ordeal.

"You really don't get what that might be suggesting?" the blonde asked with furrowed brows. Hitori was pretty smart and analytical and she seemed to be good at reading people, so was she just dense in this department in particular?

"No, I don't. I don't have much socialising experience. This is one of the first things you could count as me having 'friends' and such..." she trailed off, not wanting this to become some huge conversation about her sob story of a past. Temari picked up on her hesitation to continue, so she got the message and didn't bother bringing up the matter since Hitori clearly didn't want to discuss it.

"Fair enough. Well, I'm not sure either. But I'll keep an eye on it. Just wait and see, I guess." the dark green eyed woman said, trying to distract Hitori from her tone earlier which might have revealed that she already knew what was happening with Gaara.

Luckily, it seemed like she didn't realise because this matter confused her so much, and she shook her head vigorously before thanking Temari for listening. They bid each other goodnight, and Hitori exited her room and shut the door. With a sigh, she tilted her head back so she was looking at the ceiling and started to walk back to her own room, dragging her feet lazily with her head still looking directly up.

When she got to the hall way that housed both her and Gaara's bedroom, she smelt something...very nice. She put her head back to a normal position, looking straight in front of her, and saw Kankuro leaning up against her door-frame with a bottle of sake in each hand. He smirked as he swished the liquid inside a little and winked at her.

"Ya want a drink, Hitori?" he asked with a soft chuckle under his breath.

Instead of replying with words, she simply walked over to him and grabbed one of the bottles out of his hands and walking back towards the living room. She flopped down on one of the couches and cracked open the bottle and drank a portion from it directly. She sighed happily, glad to have a drink after a while. Nothing was better than a drink to relax with, especially when your drinking partner was Kankuro.

She had felt better after talking it out a little with Temari, but Kankuro didn't bother asking questions even though she was sure that he noticed her acting a little differently. He seemed to just try and distract her with telling funny stories of various things that he'd done whilst drinking over the years.

For at least another hour or two, they drank, talked, laughed, smiled and teased with each other until Kankuro had finally had enough to drink. Clearly, the guy had a very low tolerance. She escorted him back to his room, and put him to bed for the second night in a row. He thanked her, but went serious for a moment.

"Hope ya feelin' better too." he slurred even though the comment was genuine, and smiled lopsidedly.

Hitori nodded told him to get some sleep. When she was walking out the door, he told her that she better heal his hangover tomorrow. She laughed out loud at that, and told him that the only way he was getting healed is if he was admitted to the hospital. They said goodnight and she shut the door.

Rolling her eyes, and shaking her head at the sound of him falling out of bed as she strolled down the hall, she was glad for him and Temari being there for her tonight. It wasn't like she was having some huge mental breakdown, but this was just something that she hadn't really dealt with before. With someone like her, who usually planned everything out, or at least thought of many different things that might happen in any situation, it was a little unsettling. It wasn't really part of a shinobi's job to socialise and make friends, so she never really had done that either.

Surprisingly, she had only formed her first friendship with Naruto because of her reaction to him giving her a mission. As she sat down on the end of her over-sized bed, she recalled that time.

_She walked into the Hokage's office to see the bright blond hair, and the blue eyes of Uzumaki Naruto, Rokudaime Hokage. He smiled at her and greeted her rather informally for a Hokage, but she much preferred it that way._

" _Here's your next mission." he said as he handed over the piece of paper with the details written on it._

_As soon as she saw the word 'assassination' on it, she clenched her jaw unhappily but kept her face blank. Unfortunately, the shockingly perceptive Hokage had noticed, and proceeded to question her on it._

" _Is the something wrong, Sokkenai-san?" he asked, wondering what was up with the black-haired woman._

" _It's just...I hate assassinations." she muttered quietly, with concealed anger lacing her tone._

" _So do I, and I'm sorry that I have to give you the mission. You seem to get a lot of them, don't you?" Naruto replied apologetically, not realising until just then. Hitori had been in his office at least 2 times in two weeks for an assassination, which was odd in this time. "It's your damn jutsu that does it."_

" _And that's the problem. I really hate it. But don't worry, I'll get it done, Hokage-sama." she said formally, and bowed. She made a start to leave, but the look on Naruto's face made her stop. He looked sad._

" _It's after 5pm. I'm Naruto now, not 'Hokage-sama'." he stated playfully and smiled, but it didn't really reach his eyes. "Wanna talk about it?" he asked after a long pause._

_An hour later, they were sitting on the roof of the Hokage tower, talking about their life experiences. Naruto told her all about his bond with Sasuke, and why he went so far to try and save him. He told her about what had happened when he finally faced off against him._

_In turn Hitori told him about her childhood. She told him that the aunt she was left with died when she was only 8 or so, and from then on, she had fended for herself. After a few months, she had taught herself to use her chakra a little, and had tried to start stealing food to eat after she could no longer find any scraps laying around._

_She had almost gotten busted half-way through on her first try, but instinctively, she had used some sort of technique that hid her in shadow. It was the technique that would go on to be known as the 'Kage Oni' jutsu that had literally kept her alive all those years. She learnt to control it, and used it to her advantage to steal food and money. She told him everything. About how she came to Konoha and learnt to be a shinobi and had become renowned as the 'Kage Oni', the same as her jutsu._

_The woman told him how it almost felt like her only value_ was  _her jutsu. Her and Naruto continued talking well into the night, and when she looked up into the sky to see that it was almost midnight, she realised exactly what she had done. She had opened up to the Hokage, told him everything about her and her past. He just had this air about him, it made him seem so friendly and approachable that it only made sense that she felt comfortable enough to tell him so much._

_He smiled at her revelation, and she smiled brightly back at him, the first true smile that had come across her face in many years..._

Since that night, he had tried very hard to make sure that she didn't get the bulk of the assassination missions that they were asked to do. Honestly, she was so glad that he took the time to actually listen and take in everything that she had told him, as well as consider her personal feelings on the matters of getting assassinations.

A large yawn overcame her, and she hoped that she could finally get some sleep now. She slid back up towards the head of the bed, and tucked herself under the covers.

For the second time that week, turquoise eyes were in her dreams...

* * *

The next week was full of barely sleeping, eating breakfast with Temari, Kankuro and Gaara, and then not seeing them until she came back in from anywhere between 5 and 11pm at night. But now, it was Saturday, the weekend. Kankuro had invited her out drinking and she had reluctantly accepted, even though she was about to pass out from exhaustion. Stamina she may have, but this was just insane. And she thought that doing mission after mission after mission was bad. She felt bad for Sakura, who was probably in the same position as her.

When she had gotten to Konoha all those years ago, and graduated from the academy, she had been thrown into learning medical jutsu and doing normal shinobi training at the same time. That had undoubtedly been the most exhausting periods of her life, but she was thankful that because of her normal shinobi training, she hadn't had to work at the hospital constantly.

Temari had offered (more like forced) her to come out shopping to get some more clothes for her. Hitori insisted that she was perfectly fine with her shinobi outfits, but Temari had insisted back that she should have some other clothing. She had even decided to cancel their weekly training session for it, so Hitori ended up accepting reluctantly. The blonde kunoichi actually rather enjoyed having a little bit of retail therapy occasionally since it took her mind of being a shinobi and allowed her to relax and spoil herself with the money she worked so hard for.

Hitori actually had a rather enjoyable time as well and had come home with two new outfits and a nice kimono to. Nothing too fancy, but it was just the way she liked it. They had afternoon tea at a nice tea house as well and were just walking in the door at home.

"We're home!" Temari yelled loudly to who ever was in the house. Gaara was probably already home since he tried to do whatever work he had to at home so he could be around his siblings on the weekend. Kankuro was definitely home since the faint smell of sake was in the air. Temari and Hitori both rolled dark-green and pale-grey eyes respectively at noticing it.

Said man was laying on the couch drinking away, and greeted them when they walked in the room. They talked for a few minutes and told each other about their day. Temari asked about Gaara's whereabouts, who was apparently in his room, finishing up some paper work. Hitori told them that she was going to get changed so her and Kankuro could get going.

Hitori put her things in her room and decided to get some use out of her kimono by wearing it tonight. Several minutes later (all the while listening to Kankuro tell Temari she should just leave whatever work she had to do and come out with them), she had it on and was just tying her obi. The kimono itself was light silver with pale red flowers ghosted on various places and the obi was the same colour as the flowers. Casual, but it could be formal in the right situation. She pulled her hair out of it's low ponytail and let her black tresses fall to her shoulder blades, while the bangs framing her face stayed put.

With a last quick glance in the mirror on her wall, she opened the door to her room, intent on joining Kankuro for some pre-drinking drinks and stopped when she nearly ran directly into Gaara, who had also just come out of his room. They both murmured apologies, Hitori because she was feeling stupid about not even realising he was there, and Gaara because he was too intent on checking out the transformation.

He noticed the colour of the kimono matched her eyes perfectly, and the pale red looked wonderful against her pale skin and black hair, which much to his surprise was out. She tilted her head and smirked in wait for him to rake in the unfamiliar sight and he finally noticed and turned away in embarrassment, because she caught him gawking – even though it was blatantly obvious – and also because he was blushing a little.

Being the medic nin she was trained to be, she noticed him being a little flushed and wondered whether he was feeling sick. She furrowed her brows and brought a hand up to place on his forehead to gauge his temperature. He blushed more at the sudden contact but enjoyed the feeling. Abruptly Hitori realised that he was blushing, not slightly flushed because of illness. She dropped her hand and smirked at him before ruffling his hair like she had taken to doing.

Whilst debating on whether he should say the comment that was running around his mind, he vaguely recalled a conversation he had with Kankuro today...

" _So, what should I do to get to know Hitori better?" the red head asked his brother while they sat at the table for lunch._

" _Well, usually you would ask her out or something. But since it's you and your less than inexperienced with this, I think that you should wait it out a while." Kankuro replied with a shrug, not really knowing what other advice he could give to his younger sibling._

" _What should I do in the mean time then?" Gaara inquired after a bit of a pause._

" _I don't know. Just be you, but try and come out of your shell a little more. It might help her figure it out on her own." he answered as nicely as he could, trying to make it simple. He smiled a little when Gaara nodded, taking in his advice. "Try and compliment her once in a while. I'm sure she'd like that."_

_Gaara nodded again, taking all this new information and filing it away in his mind. Hopefully he'd be able to take advantage of Temari taking her clothes shopping to compliment her..._

"Um, Hitori..." he blurted out before he could fully think it over. He saw her turn to look at him over her shoulder, but only so she was looking at him out of the corner of her eye. "...you...look nice..." he finally got out and gave her a small smile to make it seem genuine, because he didn't know whether his shaky voice would indicate that.

She turned more to look at him properly, and looked more than a little bewildered before smiled faintly as well. "Thanks." she said simply and smiled a little more at him before turning away again.

When she was fully out of ear-shot, he inhaled and a exhaled heavily, glad that he actually did it. He also walked out to the living room, wanting to let Kankuro know that he had complimented her before he left, since he would be too drunk when they got home, and too hungover tomorrow. Gaara sat next to him on the couch and waited until Temari and Hitori had gone into the kitchen so they wouldn't hear him if he spoke quietly.

"I did it." he whispered quickly and prepared himself for Kankuro's reaction, which he guessed dead on.

He had a bewildered look similar to Hitori's earlier then beamed at him happily before throwing an arm around his shoulder and pulled him closer to him and quietly told him that he was very proud and various other encouraging things that Gaara couldn't deny about it not making him feel a little happy hearing, even though Kankuro was a little tipsy.

The two girls came back from the kitchen, and Temari excused herself to go do the work she had neglected doing today so she could go out with Hitori. Gaara also had to get back to his work, and he excused himself as well and told him to have a good night. Kankuro and Hitori decided to head out, and he lead the way to his favourite bar. Most of the shinobi in Suna hit the place up often, and there were even a few of the hospital staff there that Hitori had gotten to know a little over the time she'd been working there.

Until about 10:30pm that night, they drank, talked, joked and laughed with the various other shinobi that came and went and had a great night. Hitori was able to talk to some of the jonin and chunin that Kankuro and Temari worked with, as well as talk with the medics in a social setting, who got a whole new respect for how much to small girl could drink and not seem the least bit drunk.

They left and Hitori almost had to carry Kankuro home, but he insisted he could walk even though it took them at least fifteen extra minutes to walk home instead of the usual ten minutes. Even though the brown-haired man was trying his darnedest to be quiet, tripping over things and being very ungraceful was definitely not helping. Thankfully, Hitori had sensed Temari and Gaara's chakras when they were a few minutes away from home and they didn't feel like they were asleep, so she just let Kankuro go, who eventually ended up on the couch just as his siblings were coming out to the living room.

Temari went and got a blanket for him, and said goodnight to them and went back to her room. Kankuro was asleep in a matter of minutes, and Gaara abruptly remembered that there was something he had to tell Hitori. She didn't seem drunk at all, so he decided to ask her now, while his confidence was inflated a little from the event earlier today. They walked to his room, and he gave her a reply letter that he had gotten from Naruto only about half and hour after she left tonight. He pointed out the section that was meant for her to read.

_Hitori,_

_Since you actually decided to accept the position of the link between Suna and Konoha, I'd like for you to come back for a day or two and we'll quickly talk over some things that the job will involve._

_Also, I haven't seen you in ages and I think it's time we hung out. Everyone else is too busy, and it doesn't really make sense that I have free time since I'm the Hokage but everyone else doesn't...  
_

_Anyway, take your time leaving but I'd like you here before next weekend._

_Love Naruto._

_P.S. Thanks for helping Gaara out. I know that he really appreciates it, and so do I._

She smiled faintly, almost hearing his melodic and happy voice reading the letter out as she read it and huffed in amusement. It was funny reading that now after she had just been on a night out herself, but it was right. She really hadn't hung out with him in ages. Hitori handed the letter back to Gaara and nodded once. She turned around to head out, Gaara's voice stopped her.

"You can leave whenever you like. But I think the hospital will miss you if you are gone for too long...and so will my siblings." he said with a smile and a slightly teasing tone.

"Heh, pretty much. And I know that you'll miss me too!" she replied and playfully ruffled his bright red hair. She didn't really expect him to tense and blush a little, but schooled her expression to make it seem like she didn't notice. "Anyway, get some sleep. I'll see you tomorrow morning."

With that, she turned and left the room, only just hearing him say goodnight after her after he snapped out of it. The woman strolled back to her own room, that was just down the hall and decided to take advantage of Kankuro being asleep in the living room. She quickly went and used his bathroom then went back to her own room, put herself to bed and fell into a light sleep.

Gaara, on the other hand, was laying in bed, trying his hardest to get Hitori off his mind. She had looked so...beautiful, dare he think it, when she thanked him for his compliment and that made him want to compliment her again and again. He was quite sure that he was starting to 'like' her as Temari had put it, and he wondered whether she felt the same.

It was a stretch, since she hadn't shown any signs of this 'crush' thing around him, but then again, she was a very composed person normally, usually only changing her expression for a brief smile, or a faintly amused smirk. And even then it was more or less the emotion she displayed through such a small gesture that made it look more than what it was.

He briefly thought about Kankuro's suggestion of asking her out, and he contemplated that idea. Mentally deciding to ask Temari about her thoughts on the matter tomorrow when they got up, he rolled over and tried to make himself comfortable so he could sleep, but no matter how many times he tried, he just couldn't stop thinking about her pale-grey eyes.


	4. Scarred

**Chapter 4 - Scarred**

" _Three hundred metres until target interception." the female said quietly into her tiny microphone, and the nine other people set to the same frequency responded with an equally quiet sound of acknowledgement. "Two hundred metres...one hundred metres...get ready." she activated her jutsu almost instinctively as they got closer to their target._

_The group of ten that made up her team prepared themselves for what would most likely be the most difficult battle of their lives. They were pitted against at least 15-20 shinobi, all of which were listed in the Bingo Book. Every single one of them had been training, analysing, and planning for this day, and it would all come down to the small amount of time that they would be fighting for their lives, their pride and for their village._

_It was way too quiet as they silently stalked and jumped through the trees to get sight of their target. The female laid eyes on them and counted 17 shinobi. She couldn't see anything significant about them from this distance, nor could she see any hitai-ite or ANBU tattoos, let alone something that might actually help her figure out what they were capable of._

_Just like they trained, she waited for three of the ten shinobi make their way down the trees and get behind the opponents closest to them. They had formed a circle around them, which would hopefully stop them from escaping, but it might also mean that they were trapped as well._

_With a stroke of luck, the three team members managed to kill or incapacitate four of the enemy and two of them were starting to make hand seals for their jutsu, going by the plan. The third was protecting them while they were open for that short amount of time, even though it was doubtful that anything would happen but it was enough for a good shinobi to take advantage of._

_Two shinobi that were on opposite sides of their circle began drawing kunai and shuriken and started throwing them at the enemy, hoping to get a lucky strike, and take them off guard as well as distract them from dodging the jutsu that two of their comrades were about to use._

_Hand seals were completed, names of techniques were said, and the result was a huge katon and futon jutsu that came together to make an even bigger combination technique that tripled it's destructive force. One of the enemy was caught in the jutsu, and another just got away, but was cut by the blades of futon chakra and burnt by the katon. Most of the others scattered to get away from it and some were left vulnerable._

_It seemed like they had the upper hand, until hundred of kunai began flying at the seven remaining shinobi who were still perched in the trees, waiting for their moment to strike._

_All seven of them dodged the sharp weapons, aside from a few occasional slices to the arms or legs. It took them off guard and distracted them long enough for three of the enemy to each send a huge katon towards the parts of the circle that they were facing and burnt off most of the leaves and branches that were in it's direct path. The chakra-generated fire also seemed to be propelled further and quicker by a futon jutsu that must have been cast in the very middle of the battlefield out of their sight. These guys were clearly just as well prepared as they were._

_She heard muttered and hissed curses through the ear-piece and hoped that none of her team were down after she felt some fluctuations in their chakras. When the large katon's dissipated but their vision was still obstructed by flames and smoke, the chakra of the three shinobi that were already down on the ground out of the trees fighting surged, then disappeared completely, which meant only one thing._

_They were_ dead _. Just like that._

_Pale-grey eyes hidden in shadow widened seeing their bloodied corpses after the smoke cleared, one of which was decapitated and the others were just lacerated so badly that they were barely recognisable._

_There were eleven enemy shinobi left, and she momentarily felt proud that her comrades had managed to take out so many of them before they passed. Anger was boiling inside her, threatening to burst, but she squashed it back down and remained calm. She could get angry and upset later._

_Four of her team jumped down and began going up against six of the shinobi in taijustu and close range combat, and she could see the glinting of kunai in hand, some that had already been soaked with blood. It seemed that the shinobi were a little weak against hand to hand combat, compared with their wondrous ninjutsu usage that they showed previously and she hoped to take advantage of that the first chance she got._

_Knowing that the other two of her remaining comrades were about to stop throwing kunai and shuriken and start using ninjutsu, she unmasked her chakra and let it flow into her extremities in preparation, but didn't drop her jutsu._

_All three of them felt the chakra of their four comrades currently fighting surge and drop out one by one and they had the extreme displeasure of seeing their team members being killed brutally, and she heard low growling through the tiny speaker. They collected themselves and exhaled heavily in preparation for their counter attacks._

_The other two began making hand seals, and she watched out for them as they did and started making her own seals faster than anyone with a Sharingan could follow. Two huge suiton jutsu came soaring out of nowhere and went charging at their opponents._

" _Raiton: Jibashi!" she hissed quietly, and aimed the massive bolts of lightning at the water._

_Luckily, it seemed that the enemy wasn't expecting that, and at least three of them were caught in it, and were electrocuted and killed by the combination technique._

_The remaining enemy just barely escaped by leaping into the trees, and getting out of the way of the water. They were still outnumbered by the enemy, and the black-haired woman half-sighed, and half-growled quickly before releasing her jutsu and dropping to the ground along with the remaining enemy after the water had passed._

_She dropped to one knee and smashed a chakra-laced fist into the ground, which instantly cracked and opened up all around them. It surprised the enemy shinobi that the small girl had so much physical strength and her other two team mates took that opportunity to attack and all three of them inwardly hoped that they could find a way to beat these shinobi..._

* * *

"Hitori!" Gaara said a little louder and just barely missed her head colliding straight into his as she flew to sit straight up, snapped out of her slumber.

Silvery-grey eyes came slowly into focus after a moment and she turned her head to see Gaara looking at her with concern in his eyes and he watched her as she shook her head a little to try and dispel the memories she had suppressed for so long that had come back to her in a dream.

"Are you okay?" he said with slightly worry and confusion in his voice.

He had heard her through the walls tossing and turning and talking in her sleep. At first he didn't think anything of it since he assumed she was just getting annoyed at not being able to get comfortable and sleep or something like that, but when he heard someone's name that he didn't recognise being said loudly, as if in distress, he decided to go and see if she was alright.

She replied with a single quick nod and a small sound in the back of her throat that was half-way between a 'No' and a 'Hmm'. These memories, and dreams were why she barely slept. She hated reliving that day, that small amount of time in which she lost good friends, all because she had incorrectly gauged the power and strength of their opponent and the level of teamwork and skill they had.

That was why when she actually survived that fight, even though none of her comrades did, she made it so that it would never happen again. She would never screw up a mission. And when she went back to take out the remaining shinobi, she personally killed the ring leader with a flat hand straight through his chest and a dark smirk on her face. Even though she hated killing, hated being so damn good at her job, that moment did give her some sadistic satisfaction.

Still sitting straight up and breathing quickly and deeply, she knew she wouldn't get back to sleep any time soon. Not at least for the next two days until she was that god damn exhausted that she passed out. She briefly thought about just going up to the hospital and keeping herself busy to distract herself, but doing that was probably she dreamt about those events. Because she suppressed them, and tried to forget about it.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Gaara asked quietly, honestly not expecting her to agree, but when she slowly turned her head to look at him with a shockingly open expression and nodded, he gave her a small, sad smile before moving so she could get out of bed.

Without really thinking about it, she got up and walked to the open window and stuck her head out of it. She looked directly upwards, and made a small sound of acknowledgement before climbing out the window, much to Gaara's surprise. He followed her and went out the window as well, and she was already sitting down on the roof with her knees bent and tucked up to her chest and her arms wrapped around them.

He climbed up with the ease and grace of a shinobi and sat next to her. As good as she was at keeping composed and all that, she couldn't hide the slight shaking of her body and the tiny glint of torture in her eyes. For something to effect her this much that she couldn't keep it covered up then it really must be serious. He knew all too well what it was like. They sat in silence, Hitori trying to get the courage to speak, and Gaara just waiting until she was ready.

"I had a dream about the first big mission that I lead. I had been in charge for heaps of ANBU missions since I was a squad leader, but this one was to get back vital information from missing-nin that had stolen it from Konoha shinobi that they had killed. There was twenty of them originally, but the team with the information had killed three of them before they were defeated. It was my job to chose and lead the team that took the rest of them out." her breathing was a little shaky sometimes, but she kept going.

"There was ten of us. I had chosen shinobi because of their chakra natures and skills in re-con and stealth, and we trained using different collaboration jutsu and everything else for at least two weeks before we got sent out. We found them and surrounded them, just as planned. Three of them snuck up on them and managed to get rid of four of them, one of them was only knocked out though. Two of them started making hand seals for the first collaboration jutsu, which was a katon and futon combo and two of other guys started throwing kunai and shuriken so we might catch them off guard and stop them from dodging the jutsu." her pale-grey eyes were closed as she laid down on her back with her arms crossed underneath her head and she told the most painful part of the tale.

"One of the enemy was caught in the jutsu and another only just dodged, but was injured in the process. We were going good until they started flinging hundreds of kunai towards us who were waiting in the trees. Most of us dodged them aside getting a few cuts, but nothing serious. Then, three of them used huge katon jutsu and I'm not sure but I think one of them in the middle used a futon jutsu to make it stronger...as well as kill the three guys on the ground fighting them at close range." she stopped for a moment, and sighed quietly at the recollection of feeling their chakra rise then stop completely that always made her feel like she was back there again.

"We all saw them, totally mutilated by the jutsu. One of them was even decapitated. It was horrible, even for shinobi standards. There was eleven of them left by that point, and four of the other guys jumped down and started fighting several of them in taijustu while the other two kept throwing weapons at them. Then we saw the four on the ground get killed." she almost choked a little saying 'killed' but she knew that if she stopped she probably wouldn't be able to continue.

"Me and the other two started using our suiton and raiton collaboration jutsu, and three of them were caught, but the others got out of the way by climbing into the trees. When the water passed, we all jumped down, and I remember slamming my fist into the ground and it just starts to get hazy after that. But I do recall seeing my last two comrades get killed, and one of them injected me with something just before he died, but I don't know what it was...then I remember waking up in Konoha's hospital about one week later with this scar."

She lifted up the back of her shirt all the way to show him the huge scar going down from her right shoulder blade to the middle of her back. It was at least 1 centimetre wide, and Gaara didn't doubt that it would have been a wound that would have killed her if she wasn't a medic nin. And her comrade injecting her with something probably had something to do with her survival.

"I have no idea why I survived that fight. By rights I shouldn't have, especially with the wound that caused that huge scar. But I could bet that it was all because my team mate injected me with something that slowed my heart rate and need for oxygen – there fore slowing my bleeding – to a point where it would almost be impossible to tell that I was alive from any non-medically trained shinobi."

There was a comfortable silence between them as Hitori was immersed in her thoughts, and Gaara was immersed in his, thinking over what she'd told him. He was pretty sure that something like that would have most likely been a highly classified mission file, but it wasn't like he planned on telling anyone about it. Hitori might end up telling Temari and Kankuro if she felt it necessary, but he wouldn't speak unless she said he could. He finally figured out what to say, but didn't bother thinking about it too much so he would second guess himself.

"If I told you that it wasn't your fault, would you believe me and accept it?" he asked quietly with faint caution. She turned to open her eyes and give him a small glare that said 'Are you stupid? Of course not'. "You couldn't have possibly guessed that your opponents would have been that powerful, otherwise you would have been able to bring a force large and strong enough to take them down." he reasoned with soft confidence, just wanting her to stop beating herself up over this.

His logic was correct, unfortunately for her. She couldn't have been able to figure out how strong the remaining seventeen were considering that an ANBU cell of four shinobi were able to take out three of them. But there was just that voice in the back of her mind that told her that it was her fault that all her comrades were killed. She was the lone survivor...and why? What had she been injected with? Why the hell had she survived with only that damn scar to show for it?

Even though she could have healed it up so that you could barely see it at all unless you were in the right light, there was something in her mind telling her to leave it there, so she kept it there as remembrance and almost like a tribute to her lost comrades. She didn't know what could have caused such a huge wound that wasn't even healed up properly after a week, .

When she actually woke up out of her almost coma one week later, everyone was so happy and shocked that she was alright to actually tell her what had happened to her. And she was too overwhelmed by actually being alive to think about it too much either.

Either way, Gaara was right. Everyone had told her that it wasn't her fault...Kakashi, Tsunade, even the hospital staff. But she just couldn't get past it. Maybe she would ask Naruto about it when she got back. He knew that it was a massive weight on her shoulders, since they had also talked about it once before. She was sure that he would want to help her get some closure and get past it, as hard as it would be and that the only reason he wouldn't have done so earlier is if he wasn't supposed to.

It was about 2 hours until sunrise, and she was planning on leaving tomorrow for Konoha, but she just couldn't deal with this any longer and decided to ask whether she could leave today. The sooner the better.

"Gaara, is it okay if I leave for Konoha at sunrise?" she asked quietly, sounding quite defeated even though she tried to cover it up a little for the sake of her pride.

"Of course you may. You can even stay a day longer if you feel the need to. I already told the hospital staff not to expect you back until at least after next Sunday, so feel free." he answered her calmly and gave her a small smile to hopefully reassure and relax her.

She returned it, even though her sadness showed through it and they sat there for a few minutes in silence before she sighed quietly and tentatively put her head on his shoulder. Gaara's eyes went wide and he tensed slightly, but instantly melted at the tired look on her face. Not physically tired, but tired from not knowing what happened, tired of the truth being kept from her, tired of not knowing how the hell she survived the fierce and brutal fight.

Gently, he rested his head on top of her as they sat in complete silence and waited until the sun rose. Blacks and blues eventually become reds, oranges and yellows. It was quite a beautiful sight, one that they got a perfect view of from where they sat. A small smile unconsciously appeared on both their faces as the colours of the starting of a new day reflected in turquoise and silvery-grey eyes.

It wasn't even awkward as they slowly got up at the same time, knowing that it was time for Hitori to leave. They slipped back in her room through the window and she started putting things in her pack as Gaara just casually leant up against her wall and watched her. She needed to change, but she didn't really want Gaara to leave the room for that. Quickly, she got her clothes out and put them on the bed and looked at him.

He didn't seem to get it for a moment then it hit him and went to start walking to leave the room but Hitori just held a hand in the air with her pointer finger moving in a circle. He tensed, but turned around and didn't move his eyes from a spot on the wall directly in front of him. She swiftly took off her sleeping clothes and threw her normal shinobi attire on and stuffed the others into her pack and put it on her back. She was ready to go.

The black-haired woman walked over to where Gaara was standing still pointedly staring at the wall. She moved around so she would be in his peripheral vision and he snapped out of his trance and gave her another tiny smile seeing that she looked like she was feeling a little better.

They walked out of the house, and she just assumed that he was going to be stubborn and walk her to the village gates, so she didn't bother bringing it up. Once they got there, she awkwardly hugged him in thanks for listening to her and making her feel better even though he barely did anything and he just as awkwardly returned it, but enjoyed it nonetheless.

"Thanks, Gaara." she said quietly and was about to pull away when she did something she didn't think about. At all.

She went to give him a quick peck on the cheek, but he turned his head towards her at the same time and before either of them could figure it out, their lips made contact. They were both in shock, so they stayed in that position for several more moments before a bird flew past overhead and squawked loudly. Gaara pulled back trying not to make it any more weird for either of them, but there was a shadow of a smile on his face.

Hitori's hair covered her face, and she turned and started walking off before Gaara could snap out of his daze and stop her, and the red-haired Kazekage stayed standing in that same spot until her small black dot disappeared from his sight completely.

* * *

Three days later, Hitori arrived outside the gates of Konoha where the Rokudaime Hokage was personally waiting to escort her to his office so they could 'discuss business'. His blue eyes lit up seeing her walking towards him and he gave her one of his shockingly contagious grins that always managed to put a smile on her face, no matter how much she tried to compose herself.

Hitori had let him know when she was a day away from them since she hadn't had time to write back to him and let him know when she was coming back. And she should have expected him to be waiting for her. She shook her head when he raised an arm above his head and started waving excitedly and walked towards her a little.

When she was standing next to him, she went to be formal with him as a subordinate to the Hokage should, but he just hugged her warmly like a friend would.

"Good to see you Hitori-chan!" he said, his melodic and happy voice reverberating through her as he hugged her. They both pulled back and he grinned again before they started walking towards his office. She didn't bother telling him to drop the '-chan', since she actually rather liked that he was so friendly towards her and he was the only person she allowed to use that particular honorific with. If it was anyone else, she'd probably punch them.

They talked about her trip while they strolled up to his office, and Hitori guessed that Naruto wanted to get all of the business stuff out of the way so that they could just hang out and catch up, not as Hokage, or as a Konoha shinobi, but just as good friends who hadn't seen each other in a while.

As soon as they got there, and they sat down on opposite sides of the desk, Naruto taking up the role of Hokage, and Hitori taking up the role of a shinobi at his command. They discussed purely business matters and just like Gaara had reminded her of Naruto all those days ago, she realised now how similar they both were in the way they presented themselves and went about their work. Then as soon as that thought crossed her mind, she remembered the odd goodbye that happened only three days ago. She tensed and her blank expression changed into one of concealed shock and embarrassment. How could she have forgotten about that?

Naruto noticed the change in her demeanour straight away and was quite confused and interested as to why something seemed to get under her skin so much. He doubted that it was something he said or did since they were merely talking over what her job will be and what kind of involvement she will have in certain situations.

Luckily, they were just going through this last file and he told her to push it away until they were done. She willed herself to be calm and cleared her mind of anything other than what the blue-eyed man was saying to her. After they were finished, it was at least 5:30, so it was definitely time to go home. Professional attitudes melted away instantly and Naruto smiled happily as they walked out of the Hokage's office and towards his home. He wasn't a huge fan of having a massive fancy place, and it was quite nice for him to be so low key.

It only took them a matter of minutes to get there and when they walked in the front door, the smell of ramen and everything else that was Naruto wafted into Hitori's nostrils and she faintly shook her head. Even since he was a genin, this side of him hadn't changed at all. Sure, he was more mature and smarter, much more than anyone could have ever realised, and even though he was also more jaded by everything he had seen and been through, he never allowed it to change who he was. Never allowed it to change that spark of purity he always had in his eyes.

To her, that was the most admirable attribute the Kyubi jinchuriki had. He told her to make herself at home as he got some snacks out for them, and a large bottle of sake to share.

"If I recall correctly, you are still too young to drink, Naruto." she said with a teasing tone as she cracked open the bottle and poured the liquid into two cups that he had set out.

"That may be so, but I work hard all day. So I think I deserve it." he retorted playfully, going along with her little game, but decided to get some payback for her dig. "So, what exactly was it that made you freeze up earlier, hmm?" he couldn't help but enjoy the thoughtful look which turned into dramatic widening of her silvery-grey eyes and the stiffening of her muscles that made it look like she had gone into rigor mortis.

"You can't tell anyone about this...or...I'll-I'll kill you." she choked out in a whisper, glaring daggers at Naruto's smirk at the last part. Even she would get her ass handed to her by the damn toad sage/Kyubi jinchuriki. "It happened when I left Suna. I kind of told Gaara about what happened on 'that' mission after I had a dream about it...I decided I wanted to leave then for reasons that we will be discussing later. We said goodbye and just gave him a casual hug to thank him for listening, and well...I'm still not sure how it happened...but...w-we kissed...I think..." she whispered with blatant shock in her tone that she didn't bother to or couldn't hide.

Naruto's eyes were as wide as saucers and his jaw dropped at the news. Even a small, low gasp escaped him. He certainly hadn't expected that one. For all he knew, Gaara hadn't really even started to notice girls yet. Apparently he was wrong. "...wow..." was all he could muster until he inhaled and exhaled deeply. "Does he like you or something?" the blond asked, still in shock.

She mock glared at him before replying. "Do you really think I would know if he liked me? Although, he was acting a little odd around me sometimes..." she mused and put a finger on her chin in thought.

"Like how?" Naruto asked, wondering how the hell Gaara would act if he had a crush on someone.

"Well, he seemed a little on edge around me, and he did compliment me once when I was wearing my new kimono. Would that mean he likes me?" she asked, since she was absolutely clueless in these matters. Naruto thought it over for a moment, and it sounded about right to him.

"Sounds like it to me. What about you though?" he replied, not being able to hide the smile on his face any more.

"I don't know. I don't even know what it feels like to like someone."

"Well, you think about it while you're here. Maybe you'll know by the time you leave."

She nodded faintly in agreement and drained her cup before setting it down on the table and refilling it.

Until the early hours of the morning, they talked about anything and everything, just thoroughly enjoying each other's company. Hitori had already decided not to bring up the reason why she came back earlier until the day she was leaving so she could enjoy the time she spent here before heading back to Suna.

The pale-skinned woman told him what happened with the rogue shinobi that had stolen her new katana, saving Ashinami's life, working at the hospital, living at Gaara's, and about her day out with Temari and her night out with Kankuro.

Naruto noticed that she seemed to like Temari, Kankuro and Gaara and that the woman felt comfortable there, something that was rare for a shinobi to feel inside another hidden village, allied or not, especially one like her who didn't ever really feel 'at home' no matter where she was. He also noticed that she hadn't brought up why she mentioned 'that' mission before and chose that he wouldn't bring it up with her unless she was going to leave without talking to him about it.

They continued to talk until it was nearly 2am, and they both decided to call it a night and get some sleep. He already had a bed set up in his guest room and they said goodnight before going to their rooms, changing into something more comfortable to sleep in, sliding under the covers, shutting their eyes and eventually falling asleep.

* * *

The next morning, Hitori woke to the smell of breakfast being cooked. She got up and walked out of her room to the kitchen/dining room and smiled sheepishly at Naruto making something other than ramen to eat and joked about finding it funny that the Hokage himself was cooking for someone else. While he cooked, she set up the table and helped him serve it up and they sat down at the small table and made small talk as they ate happily.

Naruto went off to work after he got ready and Hitori went over to her place to collect up some her things that she wanted to take back to Suna with her. She stored most of it in scrolls, not wanting to carry around more things than were necessary in her pack. There was only some clothes, weapons and training supplies, medical supplies and other random things stored in the three small scrolls and she placed them in her back pocket before heading over to the hospital to get some medicinal plants and herbs that Suna was low on.

Konoha had the best growing conditions for most of the commonly used ones, so they usually had a constant supply of them in storage. She walked through the hospital, talking with some of the medical staff about where she had been and about what she was teaching the Suna medics.

When she got to the storage room, Sakura, who was now the head medic for the hospital and the only medic to have ever surpassed the Godaime Hokage and Sannin, Tsunade, was in there mixing up something at the large table in the middle of the room. The pink-haired woman greeted her happily and told her that she was glad to hear about her helping out at Suna's hospital. Hitori told her about what she was planning on doing to help them become more skilled and efficient medics and Sakura agreed with her, as well as making some helpful suggestions.

They always had a lot of respect for one another as medics and shinobi, and it was good for them to talk for a while and catch up a little as Hitori took out some of the stored plants and herbs and put some of them aside so that she could come and grab them before she left. She helped Sakura make various medicines that they were running low in to give her a hand since she had quite a long list and just to pass the time.

After a while, they bid each other goodbye and Hitori left, intending to head back to Naruto's place and get a little more rest. She could just go back to her place, but chances were that she wouldn't wake up for a while, so it would be easier in the case that Naruto finished early, which would be quite likely. As much as he enjoyed his job, he probably wasn't overly interested in staying at work while she was only here for another two days.

She used the key he had given her this morning to get in and laid down on her temporary bed before gradually falling into a light sleep.

* * *

It was the middle of the day and Gaara already wanted to go home. The unexpected goodbye with Hitori had been on his mind ever since she left two days ago and he rather missed having her around. In such a short time, it had become normal for her to have breakfast with him and his two older siblings and the occasional lunch or dinner when she could get away from the hospital.

Kankuro had also been bummed out about her being gone because he had no one to drink with at midnight when he couldn't sleep. And Temari missed having her equally short-tempered female friend around – no matter how much she hid it – that enjoyed just hanging out and giving her puppeteer brother a hard time. Gaara missed her random visits to update him on Ashinami's condition and what she'd been doing in the hospital all day. Well, he just missed her in general.

It was an odd feeling for him to have and he wasn't sure if he liked it or not, but now he was able to realise how much he actually cared for her. Maybe this was what Temari had referred to as 'liking' someone.

He knew that deep down, he truly desired to be accepted and loved for who he was, and even though he had got that from his family and from Suna, he couldn't deny that there was still something about Hitori that seemed to fill the void he felt everyday. She had quite an effect on him just from being in the same room. And when they had – however accidentally – kissed, he had rather enjoyed that moment of having her be that close to him. The red-head wanted to experience it again and again. He still did, even more now that he knew he couldn't.

Even though he still didn't understand all this emotional stuff, and he probably never would, he was smart enough to know that he clearly felt these things for a reason, but he wanted to be able to feel loved by someone who didn't have a reason to. He felt love from his siblings, but they were his family. He felt love from the citizens of his village, but he had saved them, and sacrificed himself so that they would be safe, so it was only natural that they loved him for that.

Suddenly, there was a knock on his office door, and as he granted the person entry, he mentally noted to discuss this with his siblings tonight at dinner. But for now, he had another idea...

* * *

" _Thanks, Gaara." she said quietly and was about to pull away when she did something she didn't think about. At all._

_She went to give him a quick peck on the cheek, but he turned his head towards her at the same time and before either of them could figure it out, their lips made contact._

Hitori woke with a start and was a little confused about where she was until she recalled that the memory she had dreamed about was when she had left for Konoha, and that she was currently staying in Naruto's guest room. It seemed that he had just come home, and was whinging about something that had happened today.

He popped his head in her room and smiled apologetically at the sight of her glaring at him since he woke her up.

"Ah, sorry for waking you. And even though I'd love for you the be rested up so we can stay up all night talking again, there's something you better come and see." he said with a tone that just made her almost shake with curiosity and anticipation.

She jumped out of bed and walked out to where Naruto was in the living room and followed the single down ward tilt of his head to see a letter with familiar handwriting on it sitting on the coffee table. A single black eyebrow raised fractionally, but she picked up the letter to notice it was from Gaara, which both increased and decreased her curiosity.

"Am I supposed to read this? He probably just wanted to know whether I got here safely." she stated confidently and looked over to Naruto, who's knowing smirk invited her to read the letter...and be proven  _dead wrong_.

_Naruto,_

_This may be very odd to hear from me, but I believe that you may be able to assist me in shedding some light on my situation. I think that I may have romantic feelings for Hitori that seem to be growing in intensity, especially now that she is gone._  
It seems that I am the one who acts out of character more often in her presence but since we kissed the other day as she was leaving, now I am not so sure.  
I would like to ask for your advice on what I should do since you know her better than I do.

_I feel compelled to inform her of my feelings, but I do not think that I have the courage to reveal something like that to her since I do not know of her feelings towards me._

_I hope you and Konoha are doing well and thank you in advance._

_Gaara._

The usual blank expression that the black-haired woman wore everyday, was replaced by utter bewilderment, even as she sat down on the closest couch and put the letter back on the table. This was definitely not was she was expecting to read.

She knew that Gaara trusted and believed in Naruto, and thought very highly of him, so it shouldn't be so surprisingly for him to have confided in Naruto about it. But it was more the thought that now she actually knew for sure why he was a little different around her and why he complimented her the other day. Now that she thought about it, she had been acting a little differently around him sometimes as well.

Like when she had kept her hand gently cupping his face, ever after she finished healing his lip. Or when she had rested her head on his shoulder as they watched the sunrise the morning that she left. Not to mention the goodbye, which was the real feather in her metaphorical cap.

Did that mean that she liked him too? Maybe all these things that she had been doing that she wouldn't do around anyone else meant that she did. And what should she do if she did like him? Didn't people get married and all that when they loved each other?

"You are so clueless, Hitori-chan!" Naruto said loudly and doubled over with laughter. She looked over at him with a glare that she couldn't quite muster the strength behind since it was damn true.

She really was clueless.

Sure, she could lead missions, analyse an opponents strength and techniques, come up with battle strategies, heal wounds and illness, make complex poisons and their even more complex antidote counter parts. But this kind of stuff? Hopeless.  _Absolutely hopeless_.

When she became a shinobi, she vowed not to let anything distract her from her purpose and from doing her job. There was never any sort of romance in her life at all. Ever. She had been asked to hang out with several different males, but she never thought anything more of it up until now. The grey-eyed woman recalled the slightly affectionate with a hint of curiousness expression that Gaara had when he complimented her, and she realised that she had seen that look so many times before.

Ashinami had given her a similar look when she had gone to check on him several times in the hospital, even a few of the male medics and patients in Suna, as well as a few passing shinobi.

Unexpected things happening seemed to be quite the phase at the moment, and it took her a few moments to collect herself and she noticed that Naruto was  _still_  laughing. She glared at him again, with a lot more strength this time, and he muttered an apology while averting his blue orbs from her cold grey ones.

"This is so not funny. I don't know why you are laughing!" she hissed quietly and heard him snort briefly before containing himself. She continued to glare at him, and when he made eye contact with her again, he started laughing again.

"But you're just so confused by it all, and it's just funny to see you taken so off guard!" he choked out between chuckles. He smiled when Hitori shook her head and rolled her eyes, even though she had a small smirk on her face.

"I guess you've got a point. But still, what the hell am I going to do?" Hitori replied with a still slightly bewildered tone. She looked up at the blond and he took a deep breath and sat down next to her. She leant back into the couch and he put a friendly arm over her shoulder and pulled her closer to him.

"We'll figure it out. Don't get too worked up over it, kay?" he said calmly, tightened his grip on her affectionately and smiled down at her confused face. She nodded and put her head on his shoulder and sighed low and long.

It seemed like Naruto was going to have a lot of work to do over the next few days. And definitely not Hokage work. He had taken the next two days off so he could just relax while Hitori was here, and he knew that she would probably hate being put through this, but it would help so she'd just have to suck it up and learn as much as she could before she went back.

* * *

 

* * *

Gaara, Temari and Kankuro were sitting at the dinner table enjoying a nice meal. They didn't get to enjoy such a thing nearly often enough, and the only thing missing now was the small black-haired woman who had come into their lives only days ago because she was tracking shinobi that had stole her brand new katana before she had even laid eyes on it.

She had now been away for four whole days and they all missed her. Even though they had only known her for not even three weeks, she had become quite a normal part of their daily life, and it felt odd that she wasn't around all of a sudden, especially one day earlier than was planned.

Temari and Kankuro both had a feeling that Gaara knew something that they didn't about her and why she decided to leave earlier, but they both knew that if it was something he could talk about, that he would have told them about it. So, therefore they had both not bothered to ask about it, or even act like they cared just to make it easier for their brother, who had enough on his plate already. He had his first crush who was actually helping out at their hospital and being a physical link between their hidden villages, as well as his normal Kazekage work to deal with.

Usually having a lot of work to do never bothered the red-head, but all these new feelings that were coming to the surface after being repressed to the point where they didn't exist in his mind at all, were definitely making things difficult. He was quite sure he liked Hitori, and even if he had no idea what to make of it all, he would just have to wait for Naruto's reply and hope that the jinchuriki Hokage would be able to help him out...

* * *

Naruto woke the next day at about 9am, thoroughly enjoying his sleep in. He heard Hitori walking around, not being surprised that she hadn't slept. They had stayed up until midnight the previous night, just talking, joking, laughing and enjoying their time to hang out.

And to think that their close friendship had come out of nothing more than him noticing a small jaw clench from her when he was assigning her a mission. Hitori never bothered treating him any differently because of his position as Hokage, or because of the malicious nine-tailed fox that had been sealed inside him since he was a child. He really appreciated that. They had so much respect for one another, and what they'd been through in their life time.

He was really happy at the idea of Hitori maybe finding someone to be happy with in Gaara, but the blond also knew that he would have to give her a nice big push in the right direction for that to happen, Gaara as well. Without her knowing, he had already replied to Gaara as soon as they both went off to bed the previous night and had sent it already. He had actually gotten a great idea for how to help her, even though she probably wouldn't be too fussed on it.

Yawning loudly and stretching his arms above his head, he got up out of bed and wandered out to see Hitori laying down on the couch reading a book that she had found on his book shelf that was in his study. She smiled and they greeted each other and talked about the book and what they were having for breakfast for a few minutes before he finally decided to spring it on her.

"Hey Hitori-chan. I've figured out how to help you." he stated with a faintly mysterious tone, and grinned when she looked at him with an eyebrow raised in question.

"And how are you going to do that, Naruto?" Hitori replied her silver eyes focusing on his face, looking for any signs of what he had in mind.

"I'm going to teach you about romance." he said simply and puffed his chest out with pride. It took a moment for Hitori to collect herself.

"... _WHAT?!_ "

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter glossary -  
> 1\. Katon - Fire Release  
> 2\. Futon - Wind Release  
> 3\. Suiton - Water Release  
> 4\. Raiton: Jibashi - Lightning Release: Electromagnetic Murder (Coolest name for a jutsu...like ever)


	5. Lessons

**Chapter 5 – Lessons**

"... _WHAT?!_ "

"You heard me. I'm going to teach you everything I know about romance." Naruto retorted, with his chest still puffed out.

Hitori stopped to put on a blank expression and stare at him until he frowned and walked over to his bookshelf. She continued to watch him, still dead panned and he came back over with several books in his arms and a few pieces of paper that were probably used as make shift bookmarks. He took the one she was reading from her, and handed her another one.

"This book, is full of romance and all that mushy stuff. Read it." he said and waved his hand in the air as if trying to push away the 'mushy stuff'.

"I don't want to read it. I was actually enjoying the other book." the pale-skinned woman replied only breaking her blank expression to glare at him.

"You can read it later. There's not much romance in that one, so you'll just have to live with it." he put a bookmark in the page that she was reading and closed the book.

He started browsing through one of the other books he brought and grabbed a bit of paper when he found a lovey-dovey chapter for his friend to read. The blond marked every part in the book he thought would help and smirked when he heard Hitori groan or sigh several times.

"Naruto, this is ridiculous. How can this book help if it's not even real?" she said after a while, her tone bored and slightly irritated.

"Just because it's not real, it doesn't mean that it can't portray true emotion through it." he replied with a bit of a wistful expression, but his voice was unwavering. "What about you singing? You show emotion through it, don't it?"

She glowered off to the side, recalling when he had busted her sitting on her roof singing a little after she had drunk a fair bit at the bar. It was a while after she had gone on an ANBU mission and one of her team-mates was killed in combat. As much as she would never admit it, losing someone on the field always reminded her of 'that' mission. Absently, she brushed her hand over the large scar on her back, and Naruto noticed. Hitori always did it when the mission came to mind.

"You could sing about something happy, but your true emotions would still show through if they were strong enough." Naruto continued quietly, not wanting to upset her, but just make his point. "Just keep reading, okay? I just want to help." he smiled at her, and she knew that he was right. She could  _definitely_  use some help with this stuff.

The woman didn't bother replying, just kept reading instead about a guy who was in the hospital and had fallen in love with his nurse and it went through the motions of him telling her, and he found out that she felt the same. She was currently up to the part where they were having their 'touching moment' and since the male was finally well enough to get out of bed and stand, he had gotten up and pulled the woman close to him in a loving embrace before kissing her passionately.

Hitori rolled her eyes, but kept reading as Naruto continued to flick through pages of books. Most of them were just random stories that he had bought to keep himself amused, and he only read the ones with lots of action and fighting in it, but as always, there was usually some element of romance. He had selected some of the ones that he had found somewhere, or had decided to read just for the sake of it, since most of those were all the romance types.

Hitori finished the small book that probably only had 30,000 words, if that. The blue-eyed jinchuriki had also finished finding all the things he thought would help in his books and and it was definitely time for some breakfast – more like lunch now – to be made. She picked up another book, and started reading the marked chapters and pages and Naruto went to make something for them to eat.

She got through several chapters in two different books and only had one to go. Naruto had finished cooking and she quickly set up the table and serve up the food and continued to read while they ate. When she had finished, they both kept eating, and Naruto took to asking her some questions.

"So, why do you think one person can love another?" he asked with his mouth half full, being classy as always.

"I think it's because someone can accept someone else for who they are." she answered sagely. She was still a little confused with the whole thing, but reading those books had actually helped a lot.

"That's a good answer. Do you think that something like soul mates exist?"

"Hmm...I don't really think so. There's so many people in the world, how can we just happen to me 'the one' or whatever it's called. But that doesn't mean we can't love someone and stay with them for however long we live." she tilted her head to the side before she spoke, showing her contemplation.

"Another good answer. I think that we can't really tell one way or another, so we should just be happy if our fleeting lives as shinobi involves having someone that we love."

"I have to admit, that was probably the biggest revelation for me. In that third book, when the guy died but he told the woman he loved her at the last second, I kind of realised that it would be pretty hard to die without telling someone how you felt and not getting a chance to show them."

"That's true. And that's why I think you should see where things go with Gaara. You are both quite similar in a lot of ways. Both of you have difficult pasts, but now you are both so kind and caring...Don't look at me like that!" he added and laughed as she glared at him for saying she was 'kind and caring'. "You have a good heart Hitori, and you may be the most jaded shinobi I know, but you still care about your friends and comrades."

She continued to glare at him, but her eyes softened a little when she saw his pride for her shining through in his smile. It seemed like he was very glad that after all she had been through, that she was still able to care about the people close to her.

"Naruto, you are my  _only_  friend. You do realise that, don't you?" she said with a fractionally raised eyebrow.

"No, I'm not. Not any more." he replied a little quieter. Hitori threw him a 'Elaborate please' glance his way and he chewed and swallowed his food before continuing. "You have Temari, Kankuro and Gaara now as well."

Her eyes widened a bit in realisation and she huffed in knowing. He was right, she had made friends with them and she hadn't even noticed. She was living in their house, eating meals with them, hanging out, talking and having a good time with them. Even letting Temari take her clothes shopping.

Naruto smiled as he watched the expressions changed slightly on her face. She didn't have a huge problem with not composing herself as much as usual with him, so he was able to see her initial surprise at his words, her thinking about it, the epiphany itself, the acceptance and dare he say it, happiness. She seemed to be quite fine with having more friends and he was happy about it as well.

It had always been hard for them to see each other and hang out because of their busy schedules. Usually, she was out on a mission, travelling to some place, to do something or other, and he was in his office, working on something that he had probably done already only two weeks ago.

Most of the time they just tried to spend half an hour or an hour hanging out here and there since that was usually the easiest way to work around both their schedules. But he was glad now that they could hang out for a few days, and he was even more glad to help her out with things that were so new to her. She was almost like a child, trying to take in everything she could. Hitori was the kind of person who didn't like not knowing something, so it was only natural that she acted like this.

When they had finished eating, they both washed up, which somehow ended up in a water fight, and Hitori ended up cheating by jumping on Naruto's back after she completely soaked him, getting a good hold on him and sending a few tiny waves of raiton chakra into him that gave him enough of a shock to tense his muscles for a moment and make him a little dazed for a moment.

He came back to his senses a few seconds later and immediately started chasing her around again. She ran out of his place and he grabbed the key and quickly locked the door before following her. Luckily, she thought they were still playing around so she wasn't really using her full speed, but Naruto was, and he caught up to her easily. The grey-eyed woman yelped sensing him right behind her and leapt up on the nearest rooftop and started running faster.

Naruto followed suit, still being able to keep up with her. Most people were a little confused at seeing the Hokage running around, chasing someone and were a little concerned until they heard his musical laughter and saw his grin.

They continued to chase each other around the village, over the roof tops and along the ground. They kept going until they ended up on one of the huge training grounds. It seemed that they both had the same idea and each drew a kunai and instantly began sparring. The adrenalin rush from the running had gotten to them and they couldn't help but keep up the feeling.

Even though they were supposed to be sparring, they were still smiling and laughing. Hitori would turn her jutsu on and off so she would be hidden in shadows and then appear at random places when she was literally running circles around Naruto. He would use his Kage Bunshin to chase after her and half-try to hit her with a very, very toned down Rasengan and she would chuckle and continue to dodge him.

Hitori decided it was time to get the upper hand and did a few quick hands seals.

"Katon: Gokakyu no jutsu!" she exclaimed and sent the large fireball into the various Kage Bunshin that were catching up to her and disappeared again using her jutsu.

She felt the air shift a little and then she saw Naruto himself coming straight for her. The smart-ass was in Sennin Mode and he was using his increased sensory abilities to make it easier to find her when she was hidden. Also, she was just able to keep up with his immense speed, even though she was completely on the defence, and was quickly beaten when he began using Kawazu Kumite and went to kick her, but unfortunately because of the increased range, she was still hit and went flying back towards a tree, but luckily one of his Kage Bunshin caught her.

Her eyes were tightly shut and she was waiting for the impact, but opened her eyes to see Naruto's smug face looking down at her. She glared at him coldly and elbowed him in the solar plexus and leapt out of his arms as the Kage Bunshin disappeared in a puff of smoke.

The blond just laughed and walked over to her and slung an arm around her shoulder while he continued to laugh. Again, she glared at him and went to elbow him in the stomach, but luckily for him he saw it coming and moved so that he was just out of the way. Unfortunately though, that was what Hitori wanted him to do. Using her speed and agility, she swung her leg around to kick his side and send him flying a few metres. She didn't kick him that hard, but it would have hurt.

Naruto chuckled and got up, knowing that she got him good. She poked her tongue out at him casually and started walking back in the direction of his place. He decided to get her back and ran up to jump on her back. Hitori wasn't really expecting that, but when he dared her to give him a piggy-back home, just to see if she could do it, she laughed and starting running.

The small woman ran with him on her back the whole way home, and to his front door. He didn't get off, but instead just pulled the key out of his pocket and unlocked the door and when they stepped in the doorway, he was abruptly dropped on his butt. Hitori just smirked faintly and walked towards the fridge, got out two bottles of water, and threw one to him before opening her own and draining half the liquid in one go.

"That was fun." Naruto said, slightly breathless after he had gotten through about two thirds of his water.

"You cheated though. Damn Gama Sennin." she scoffed, although she was quite impressed. It was the first time she had seen the Sennin Mode and it was definitely amazing. No wonder he was able to defeat all six of Pein's bodies all those years ago.

"Heh, just because you can't stand up to it." he retorted teasingly with a chuckle.

"Yeah, of course I can't! I'm not some Kage level shinobi. And any Kage would have trouble standing up to you with your frigging Sennin Mode  _and_  your jinchuriki powers." Hitori stated with confidence. Naruto was easily one of the most powerful shinobi to have ever existed and he should know it.

He raised an eyebrow at her. "You know, if you aren't already at Kage level, you are damn close."

"Pfft, don't be stupid. Clearly since I wasn't able to stand up to you, I'm not."

"You were able to kick Gaara's ass though weren't you?"

"Only because he wasn't using his sand! Taijutsu is my speciality and his weakness! I would have had a fair bit of trouble if he was using his sand!"

"Come on! You were able to keep up with me in Sennin Mode!"

She glared at him, trying to make her point. Obviously he would have known that she was completely on the defence when he was in Sennin Mode, so she wasn't exactly 'keeping up with him'. More or less just able to defend herself at the last second.

Naruto laughed, and even though he was being serious, he still had a smile on his face the whole time. She was fast, and excellent with evasive manoeuvres. Of course she had to be, being a medically trained shinobi and all. Being fast and being able to avoid hits, weapons, and jutsu alike was part of the training.

They always seemed to get into a debate about how strong she was because she severely underestimated herself. But the most likely cause of that was because of her lack of self-esteem. She had some serious, deep-seated problems with her abilities, so it contributed to a lack of faith in herself, especially in social aspects. Luckily, she had gotten a bit better since she opened to him, and he was glad for that.

After a few minutes of continued arguing, they both gave up, knowing that the other wouldn't give in. And besides, Naruto thought it was high time that they got back to Hitori's lessons in love. When he said those exact words, she dead-panned and then turned her blank stare on him. He smirked and grabbed some of the books they were reading earlier.

Several hours later, Hitori seemed to have a much better understanding of what 'normal' people did when they cared for each other on a romantic level. She was a little flustered by the more intimate parts, but Naruto was rather vague on that, even though they both knew that being a medical nin meant that she had a more than adequate understanding of such things.

It was Hitori's last night here, and she knew that she would have to head back to Suna tomorrow morning, and even though she didn't really want to leave Naruto and his ridiculous, but shockingly amusing lessons, she was rather anxious to go back and see how Gaara acted around her.

Naruto noticed the change in her and smiled wistfully. He didn't want her to go either since they were having such a good time catching up and hanging out, but he really wanted her to continue helping Gaara out, and besides, she had a proper job that she had to do now. He abruptly recalled Hitori mentioning that she wanted to talk to him about 'that' mission and tried to think of a way to make her remember on her own.

"So, your last night, huh?" he commented a little too casually to pull it off completely. Unfortunately, Hitori was still kind of in her own world and didn't notice.

"Y-yeah. I want to go back, but I don't. I don't know..." she trailed off, not really knowing what else to say.

"I know you want to stay and hang out and I want you to stay too, but I have to go back to work tomorrow." the jinchuriki said with a small lazy sigh. She didn't really seem to remember, but it would only be a matter of time.

"I have to travel three days to get back to Suna, then I have to go straight back to the hospital, then I'll have to dive right into the new work I'll have." she retorted pointedly, making sure he knew that he wasn't the only one with a busy schedule over the next few days.

"Knowing you, you probably won't sleep for a week!" he replied with a laugh, even though he was being half-serious.

"Probably not. Kankuro will probably want me and Temari to go out drinking with him when I get back as well." the grey-eyed woman mused and shook her head at the mental image of Kankuro begging her to come drinking with him the moment she walked in the door.

"Hah, I bet you'd drink everyone in Suna under the table. Especially with your medical tricks." Naruto laughed again, remembering how last time they got to hang out properly, he had passed out and when he woke up a few hours later, she was still drinking.

"I didn't use no medical tricks last time. And besides, it's not that hard to speed up your metabolism. I could probably teach you how to do it if you had the chakra control."

"True, but I don't. It always took me ages to get a hang of the chakra control exercises. Sakura always kicked me and Sasuke's butt." he smiled, but the faint sadness showed in his eyes, even though the memories were good ones. Hitori knew that he would never get past what happened with Sasuke and the brotherly bond they had, but he was strong enough to cope with and accept it.

"It kind of sucked never having a genin team, now that I think about it. Just feels weird when everyone reminisces about theirs and I'm like 'Well, I didn't have one'."

"Just feel lucky enough that you were strong enough that the Sandaime let you go through the chunin exam test by yourself. That's pretty impressive, you know."

"That sounds so much cooler than it actually was. Honestly, all I did was use my jutsu and steal an earth scroll. And since I had a bit of medic training, I was able to sustain my bodies energy much better so I could last the whole time without being too tired and therefore was able to fight perfectly fine afterwards."

"Yeah, and you were like the normal age for genin to do the exam, yet you were strong enough to do it by yourself."

"Ah, whatever." she waved her hand to dismiss his comments, and smirked at his persistence.

There was a long, but slightly uncomfortable silence between them, and Hitori could tell by Naruto's body language that he wanted to say something to her, but was trying to hold back. She stared at him for at least a minute before he finally realised and he could tell that she wanted to know what was wrong.

"Did you want to talk about the thing with 'that' mission' now, before we both forget?" he asked cautiously and winced at the micro-expression of torture that came across her face.

"Yeah, I guess now is as good a time as any." she answered quietly and laid back on the couch with her arms underneath her head. "Basically, I just wanted to ask you if you could let me look at the mission file. I just want to know what happened. I want to know how the hell I got that scar, why I survived, and what I was injected with. It's killing me being kept in the dark about all of it." she breathed deeply, trying to calm herself a little after getting worked up as she spoke.

"Hmm, you know that I would have shown you as soon as you brought it up if I was allowed to. But I guess if it is going to affect your mental stability and your psychological state..." he trailed off, and winked at her questioning look. He was trying to find technical reasons to get around what may be not letting her read the file. "Well, we cannot have that happen since you are working in Suna now, and we want to show the best example for Konoha possible."

She smirked deviously. "Ah, I see. You have a good point there. I am quite sure that it may affect my mental state negatively if I am not able to find out what happened." she replied with serious-sarcasm.

They both looked at each other and tried to keep a straight face, but ended up laughing. And this was just another reason why Hitori enjoyed Naruto's company so much. He could make her laugh even while they were talking about something that had scarred her forever. Not just physically, but mentally, psychologically and whatever other way you could be scarred.

"So, what do you think happened?" Naruto asked quietly after they had both caught their breath and calmed down a bit. He watched Hitori's expression turn contemplative and slightly pensive, and she took a deep breath before answering.

"Well, I have no idea how I got the scar. But I don't think it could be done by a shuriken or kunai because they're so small. So I'd say either a Fuma shuriken, or futon jutsu. I didn't see any of them with Fuma shuriken, but one of the ones that I was trying to fight did have futon natured chakra, so that's what I'm leaning towards. Especially seeing how easily he was able to mutilate the other guys with it I wouldn't be too surprised."

"Yeah, that sounds about right. That would is too big for any other small weapon. I was going to say a futon jutsu as well." the blond agreed, knowing quite well what futon jutsu can do, all from personal experience.

"That probably would have knocked me out, and I wouldn't have been able to move much because of how close to my spine it was. If it wasn't for being decently muscular for a woman and kind of fast, it probably would have sliced straight through my spine." the pale woman nodded a little, trying to make as much sense out of all of this as she could.

"What do you think about the injection? I'm sure your medical experience would help you figure it out or at least narrow it down a fair bit." he asked, wondering whether she had gotten any further on guessing what it was that had been injected into her bloodstream that day.

"I think I'd have to say that it was some sort of enzyme that allowed the body to slow down it's heart rate and need for oxygen, therefore making it seem like I was dead to anyone who wasn't a decent medical ninja. Honestly, I can't really think of anything else."

"I didn't even know that stuff existed." he admitted with a faint chuckle.

"You would think that with you having two good friends that are both medic nin, and being the frigging Hokage, you might have some knowledge of that kind of thing." Hitori scolded playfully, raising a brow at his idiocy.

"You would think so." he replied and scratched the back of his head sheepishly. "Why do you think your team mates went to such lengths to keep you alive?"

"Two words:  _My jutsu_. I have no knowledge of anyone else with this kind of jutsu. The only techniques close enough are the Nara clan's shadow manipulation. If I knew who my parents were, maybe I could find out if this is inherited, or just some weird DNA stuff up that I've got and I'm the only one with it."

"I guess you're right. Konoha probably wouldn't want to lose the revered 'Kage Oni' jutsu. It's the reason why you are such a damn good assassin."

"I know. But I hate it. I hate being so damn good at killing people who I've only been given a piece of paper telling me to kill them."

"Yeah, I understand. How do you think I feel as Hokage having to hand out these missions to you, and to Kakashi, and every other shinobi capable of completing it?" he half-asked, just trying to make her feel a little better.

"That's true. Promise me you won't ever ask me to succeed you as Hokage?" she said with a chuckle, not really expecting him to say what he did next.

"I have actually considered you. Just in case something happens to me, it would probably be either you or Kakashi standing in until either of you took the job, or we figured out who would be suitable and strong enough for the job."

Hitori stared blankly at him, seriously not expecting him to have even put her name and 'Hokage' in the same sentence. She thought that he would have chosen Kakashi to succeed him if he died early. She also knew that he was training Konohamaru, but he had said to her that it would take him a few years to be ready for that kind of job, but he would probably make a good Hokage one day.

"Don't. You. Dare. It's bad enough that I'm already doing this Konoha-Suna thing. I'm only doing it because I know you wouldn't ask me unless you thought it would be a really good idea. Ugh, let's just change the subject. I don't really want to talk about you dying, and me being Hokage at the same time. Two monumentally terrible things in one conversation." she shuddered faintly for extra dramatic effect.

He just chuckled in response and stretched a little. "Well, let's check the file first thing tomorrow, okay?" he smiled reassuringly and she smiled back and nodded. "For now, let's get some dinner!"

"Let me guess. Ichiraku?" Hitori guessed, even though it was obviously going to be the jinchurikis favourite ramen stall.

"Sure is!" Naruto said excitedly and jumped up from the other couch, and Hitori just slowly got up and casually strolled over to the door as the blue-eyed male jumped around a little and grabbed the key before opening the door and locking it behind them.

They walked down to the small stand, where the old man and his daughter greeted them happily, glad to still have Naruto as a customer, even more so now that he was the Hokage. He ordered his usual and Hitori ordered the same for a lack of decisiveness. Both of them ate up happily when their food was served, and Naruto insisted on paying for the meal, no matter how much Hitori glared at him.

In the end she gave up and let him pay, and they said goodbye to Teuchi and Ayame before heading home. The sun was going down by now, and they took the long way home, nearly completely circling the village before finally going back to Naruto's place. The walk was peaceful and perfect for Hitori's last night and she was very glad that her good friend was able to take a few days off to hang out and catch up with her in the limited time she was here.

Both of them decided on having an early night since Naruto had to work tomorrow as well as Hitori leaving, and they had to get up extra early to go through Hitori's mission file before too many people arrived. They talked for a while before calling it a night and using the bathroom – Naruto being a gentleman and letting Hitori go first – and then heading off to bed.

She crawled into bed and under the covers, and just laid there for a while thinking about how she was going to have clarity over one of the biggest events in her life. Even if it was the worst possible news, at least she would know. And to her, knowing was the most important thing.

Naruto was really going out on a limb for her here and she couldn't be more grateful to him. He would probably get in a bit of trouble for allowing her to see the mission file for herself if someone found out, but knowing him he wouldn't care if he got in trouble if it meant that she felt better over the matter. In fact, his half-joke, half-serious reasoning that he used before, about her mental stability being at risk could actually be quite useful if they got busted. Doubtful, but it was there just in case.

Either way, tomorrow, she would find out exactly what happened, and why. And then, she might be able to sleep better at night.

After a few minutes of contemplation, she fell into her usual light sleep...

* * *

In the morning, Naruto knocked on Hitori's bedroom door to let her know he was ready to go, and she quickly got dressed and off they went. They didn't exactly make it obvious that they were going to the file room, but since there was no one around, it wouldn't have mattered if they weren't half-sneaking anyway.

She felt so anxious, and Naruto knew it. He could see it on her face. They got to the file room and started looking. It was a little before sunrise, so they hoped they could quickly find the right one before lots of people started arriving. Usually the blond Hokage didn't get to work until around 7:30 – 8am, so they should probably have a while to search. About 45 minutes later, Naruto found the right file. Hitori stared at it, keeping her face blank and took the file from him slowly. She sat down, right in the middle of the room, and Naruto sat beside her and patted her on the shoulder reassuringly before she took a deep breath and opened it up.

Firstly, it showed when the mission was sanctioned, what date the assigned shinobi set out, and when the mission was completed. Then it had who was assigned in order of rank, which meant that Hitori was at the top. She cringed a little seeing the other's names, but kept going. There was a description of the mission around a paragraph long that said that Konoha shinobi had been killed by this group and that they had stolen important information from them that must be retrieved.

Hitori turned the page for the mission results. The person who had written it down was anonymous, as all classified files were, and she nearly growled seeing 'dead' written in there several times even before she started reading it properly. Naruto felt her tense up and put his arm around her shoulders and gently caressed her arm to try and keep her calm.

Grey-eyes scanned the writing, taking it all in, until she got to the part she was looking for. The medics report. Apparently, she was injured by a futon jutsu and she was actually injected with exactly what she thought it was. A special formula designed to make it seem like whoever it was given to was dead because their heart was beating so slowly, and they barely needed to breath. Basically, it just slowed down normal bodily functions to a point where it would be near impossible for any shinobi that didn't have medical training to tell that they were alive.

The next part, was by far the worst. It was the 'Notes' section that was for any special information that may be relevant to the mission's success. The name of her second-in-command was written there, and it said that he had been given the special enzyme and was charged with the duty of keeping Hitori alive at all costs because her jutsu was too precious to lose. Naruto seemed to have read that part as well, and he exhaled a little heavier and shook his head. Did Konoha forget how important Hitori was as a medic nin, someone who was trained to  _save_  lives?

There was a scribbled comment saying that Hitori had been kept alive, and she clenched her jaw when she read it. She had been saved by her dead comrade whom she couldn't protect because she failed her mission. Naruto instantly picked up on her increasing upset and did not hesitate to hug her. The smaller woman relaxed a little and took a few shaky breaths before saying that she was alright.

He let her go, if a little reluctantly, and she got up and put the file back after making sure there was nothing else to be read. Naruto stood up as well and gave her a small smile. She only half returned it, and together they walked towards his office slowly. They sat down on the seats on the opposite side of the room to his desk and talked it over a little for a while.

It didn't take long for it to sink in and soon enough Hitori started to feel better, glad to have some resolution and clarity on the matter. After not knowing anything for so long, she just felt so much better about finally having some light shed on the whole situation.

She had already grieved for her lost comrades, and she already knew that they would have kept her alive for a damn good reason, and she had already suspected that they were following orders, so it didn't hit too hard, even though it still got to her a bit. When they both heard the doors to the building being opened, Hitori took a deep breath and stood up.

It was time for her to go.

Naruto stood up as well, and they hugged each other tightly before saying their goodbyes. He went and sat behind his desk, ready to start the day, and Hitori walked out, shutting the door behind her. She continued out of the building, and back to his place. She had to straighten up the guest room before she left, and she also had to grab her pack as well as go and pick up the various plants and herbs and other medical supplies she had put aside at the hospital to be taken back to Suna and also drop a letter off so it could be sent to Imono, who would probably be freaking out by now.

Within twenty minutes, she had cleaned up and was ready to go. She grabbed her pack and went to put the spare key that she had been using on the rack, but there was a note there from the blue-eyed jinchuriki telling her to keep it so that if she came back to visit, she could come straight it, and also for something to remember him by.

The black-haired woman smirked and grabbed hold of the chain that hung around her neck. She put the key on there and huffed in acceptance. She went out the door and locked it behind her and quickly sent two letters before she headed over to the hospital and to the storage room. The scroll she was going to store the medical supplies was in her back pocket, and she pulled it out and laid it down on a table.

In a few minutes, she had everything she needed laid out on the table on top of the scroll. With a couple of quick hand seals, there was a tiny puff of smoke and the items were now sealed inside the scroll, and could only be unsealed by her alone.

And now, she was ready to leave. The scroll went in her pack and then she put it on again and walked out of the storage room. A lot of the medics were arriving now and they all said 'Good morning' to her and she just nodded respectfully in response and strolled through the halls until she was out the front door.

Hitori kept walking in the direction of the village gates until she saw a mop of silvery hair on a man in her peripheral vision.

"Hey Kakashi." she said loud enough for him to hear, already knowing who it was.

"Ah, Hitori. I had heard that you were back for a few days." the older man replied and closed his book. Even after all this time, he was still reading them.

"Bit late, I'm about to leave now." Hitori scolded him. She had actually been looking around for him while she was here, and usually after a while she would find him but it took her a little longer this time because she was hanging out with Naruto so much.

"That's too bad, we could have had a sparring session before you left." Kakashi spoke with a slight bit of disappointment in his tone. They had always gotten along well and he was actually glad to see that she was doing well.

"If I could have found you earlier we could have." she continued to scold him, even though she was smirking.

"Well, next time then." he said and gave her his usual eye-crinkle smile.

"Just don't be so hard to find next time I come around, yeah." the grey-eyed woman started to walk off and waved behind her shoulder. Even though it was a small little interlude, a lot was expressed in that time.

Kakashi was always the type to express more in what he did and said than most people expected. When he was talking about the sparring session, he basically meant that he would have liked to see her for a little longer before she left, and when he said 'next time', he meant that she had to hang out with him next time she was here.

She liked that he was so easy to read after all this time. Usually reading people became much easier after spending so much time with him since only about a quarter of his face was revealed. It went both ways though, he could see straight through her, just like Naruto could as well.

As she got to the village gates, she turned to look at the village before continuing on, ready to head back to Suna and just straight in the deep end filled with hospital work, Konoha-Suna stuff, hospital work, hanging out with Kankuro, Temari and Gaara, and more hospital work. Three days was an annoying length to be going between home and her second home, but she would just have to put up with it for now...

* * *

"Three more days..." he said quietly to himself as he rolled over in bed.

Hitori had been gone for nearly a week now, and it had been driving him insane. His temper was much shorter, and he actually felt a little down when Temari got a letter from Shikamaru. The blond had blushed and made a small high-pitched sound and ran to her room, while Kankuro and himself had been left in the kitchen to roll their eyes, or resist the urge to sigh.

The red-head still didn't understand what the hell was going on with him completely, no matter how much he had talked with his siblings about it, but he knew the vague gist of it.

He liked Hitori.

Simple as that. The black-haired, pale-skinned woman with those entrancing silvery-grey eyes had managed to get in his head without even doing anything. Just by being so friendly – no matter how indirectly she showed it – and being herself, she had somehow gotten under his skin and past every single defence that he had.

She was still so mysterious as well, which just interested him more. But Kankuro had made a discovery the other day that had made them all a hundred times more curious. It was certainly something that they hadn't expected either.

" _Hey Gaara, take a look at this..." Kankuro said as he walked in his younger brother's office with his head still buried in the book._

" _Is that the Bingo book? Why are you looking in there?" Gaara asked when Kankuro got close enough for him to see the front cover._

" _Well, ages ago, when we first saw Hitori she had a scarf covering most of her face, kind of like Kakashi does with his mask, jaan. Basically something about her looking like that seemed so familiar and I ended up looking in here for some reason with work, and I found this..." he placed the book, open to a certain page, on Gaara's desk._

_There was a slightly blurry picture of a woman dressed completely in black with a mask covering the bottom half of her face, and another bit of black material tied around her head. A long black plait was coming out from underneath it, and it looked like the woman had grey-ish eyes from the distance that the photo was taken from._

_She looked like Hitori..._

" _Are you thinkin' what I'm thinkin', ototo?" Kankuro drawled and waited for his brother's answer._

" _I think I am. Are you sure that this is Hitori though?" he asked after a long pause._

" _Who else has grey eyes, black hair, pale skin and a figure like that?" the puppeteer answered with a tiny glint in his eyes which faded as soon as he saw Gaara's eyes narrow at him. He muttered an apology and looked at the floored, slightly embarrassed._

" _So, Hitori is the 'Kage Oni'. The mysterious shinobi whose allegiance and true strength is unknown. The only thing known about her is the ability to appear and disappear in the shadows at will." turquoise eyes continued to study the photo, still a little shocked that Hitori was most likely this woman._

" _Yeah, the woman who single handedly annihilated a specialised force of thirty shinobi in the Fourth Great Shinobi World War that pretty much allowed us to break through the enemies defences and win, jaan." Kankuro recited with an awed expression and tone._

" _That is quite impressive indeed." Gaara's voice also was quite awed, and he still hadn't taken his eyes off the photo._

" _Quite impressive? Are you kidding?! It's phenomenal!"_

" _What's phenomenal?" Temari walked in the room, shutting the door behind her with an interested expression. She had come to have lunch with them since they weren't too busy today. She walked over to Gaara's desk and moved some papers before putting down the bag of take-away._

" _Check this out." Kankuro took the Bingo book from Gaara's hands and gave it to Temari, who studied the photo for a moment before coming to the same conclusion as they both had._

" _H-Hitori? Is this Hitori?!" she asked incredulously, and glanced back and forth between the photo and her siblings faces._

" _We think so. It would make sense with what we saw when she took down those shinobi when we first met her." Gaara answered, thinking back to that time._

" _Or what we_ didn't _see, jaan." Kankuro added with a chuckle._

" _Wow. So she's the 'Kage Oni'? I didn't see that one coming." Temari shook her head, dark-green eyes still showing a little bit of shock in their depths. "Should we tell her that we know?"_

" _If anything, I should tell her. It would be better coming from me since I would probably be able to find out if I gave Naruto a good enough reason. And I will simply ask if she has any connection to the 'Kage Oni' instead of telling her that we think that it's her." the Kazekage said, hoping that Hitori wouldn't be angry if they outright told her they knew._

" _Yeah, that's a good idea. If she asks you could just say that the photo in the Bingo book looked similar. It's only natural." the only woman in the room nodded in agreement and sat down in one of the chairs with her small container and a pair of chopsticks and dug in. The other two did the same._

" _So, why do you think she didn't tell us?" Kankuro mused with his mouth half-full._

" _Probably because you are such a loud mouth when you get drunk and you'd probably end up telling everyone." Temari said a-matter-of-factly and shook her head a little. He glared at her, but Gaara broke up the soon to be argument with his words._

" _Because she would be targeted." he stated simply and got both his siblings attention instantly. "She is already a well established shinobi as Sokkenai Hitori. Can you imagine how many more bounty hunters and rogue-nin would go after her if the whole world found out she was also the 'Kage Oni'?"_

" _Good point. Well, I won't say anything and Kankuro won't either, right?" Temari stared at her brother while he glared back unblinkingly._

_"Right." Kankuro said in a high-pitched voice, mocking his sister, making her stare turn into a full-fledged glare of fury._

_Gaara just sighed as his older siblings started arguing loudly..._

His curious side was completely buzzing and he couldn't wait for her to get back to find out for sure if she was definitely the 'Kage Oni' who had helped to turn the winning side of the war to the Allied nations. No one had known where she came from, but he had recalled Suna shinobi who had survived talking about the woman who disappeared into shadows and appeared only to take down an enemy, for weeks on end.

Since no one had known where she was from, the mystery of it all had been so intriguing that the name would go down in history just because she literally came out of nowhere and turned the tide of the war before going straight back to hiding in shadow.

And now that he was quite certain that it was Hitori, he had just become so much more interested in her...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter glossary -  
> 1\. Kage Bunshin  
> 2\. Katon: Gokakyu no Jutsu - Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique  
> 3\. Sennin - Sage  
> 4\. Kawazu Kumite - Frog Kata  
> 5\. Gama - Toad  
> 6\. Sandaime - Third (As in the Third Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen)  
> 7\. Ototo - Little brother  
> 8\. Kage Oni - Shadow Demon


	6. Return

**Chapter 6 – Return**

Gaara was feeling quite happy today. Hitori was coming home after being away for over a week. He had gotten her message early yesterday telling him that she was leaving just after she sent the message and he had started smiling while he read it, making the shinobi that brought it to him look very confused and a little shocked.

Temari had dropped by shortly after and she had been quite glad to hear the news as well, even though they knew that she was leaving that day anyway. They had both – more Temari - spontaneously decided to throw her a small welcome back party, just for the sake of it. She would get back around 5pm today, going by her estimation. It was 3pm now, and he could barely handle waiting any longer.

He was leaving work an hour early at 4pm today, so he would only have an hour left before he would go home and start setting up and get ready, which would probably make time fly. Temari and Kankuro would already be home by now and if he didn't have a small pile of paper work left to do, he would have left ages ago. He wrote his signature on the bottom of the piece of paper, put it aside, and repeated the action until he got to the end of the pile. Maybe he could go home now after all.

The red head got up and started making his way out of the building and towards home. As usual, it didn't take long for him to get there and he opened the door. Temari popped out from behind a wall with an excited look on her face, but it faded a little when she noticed it was Gaara, not Hitori coming home earlier than they had expected.

She welcomed him, and he returned the greeting before heading off to his room and get changed into something more comfortable. Both him and Temari began cleaning since Kankuro was out picking up some food and sake for the night, but he got back only a few minutes later and started cleaning up as well after he had put the groceries away.

Before they knew it, it was 15 minutes to 5 and Gaara quickly ran to get changed into the clothes that Temari had picked out for him to wear. He threw them on and kicked the others under his bed and left to wait at the village gates for when Hitori arrived.

He had planned on dropping a few hints about how he felt about her tonight, but since Kankuro was determined to get him drunk, – and would most likely succeed so that Gaara could shut him up - he would probably just end up blurting it out in a very unromantic fashion. Soon, it was 5:30 and he was getting worried. She had that she had allowed an extra hour for travelling through the deserts, so he had ruled out that she had gotten lost ages ago. The weather was rather good today anyway, so it was doubtful.

The moment that thought crossed his mind, he spotted a black dot on the horizon. When it got big enough for him to identify it as Hitori, he could see that something was wrong. He could see that some of her pale-skin was covered in dark patches. Blood. Without thinking, he ran to her and put an arm around her to help support her weight a little since she was limping slightly. Hitori smirked at him, recognising the worry on his face.

"Wh-what happened?" he asked while looking at her injuries. She had a laceration on her upper arm, and another one on her right thigh as well as a few minor cuts and several bruises that were slowly colouring and becoming more visible. The cuts and lacerations weren't bleeding, due to her medical skill, even though they were moderately deep.

"Ah, I'm not sure who they were, but they were most likely just rogue nin trying to get the bounty on my head. It doesn't matter, they're taken care of." she said with a dark look in her eyes. "I've been healing myself since it happened about 45 minutes ago, so I should be fine within about 20 minutes or so." she glanced at him and smirked again, and it turned into a smile when he smiled back.

He still looked a little worried, but she assured him that she was fine. It took them a few minutes to get back home and Gaara opened the door and lead her inside. Temari and Kankuro popped out from behind a wall in unison, but their happy faces disappeared into worry seeing their friend limping a little and covered in blood.

They asked if she was alright, but she told them she was perfectly fine and they reluctantly went back to cooking dinner, knowing that Gaara would take care of her, and also to give them a moment alone. They walked to her room, and she sat down on the chair at the small desk and sighed for a moment and watched Gaara open up her medical bag and get out some bandages. He turned towards her and found her lifting up her pants leg as far as it would go.

Focusing her chakra on the wound, it started to slowly disappear into a large red line. He got a little nervous, but tried not to let it show. When she had finished, she focused on her arm, which healed up quickly. Turquoise eyes noticed blood on the side of her head, and he started to worry again. It was matted through her hair and she must have bled profusely when it first happened. She gave him a reassuring glance and he walked over to her and carefully brushed some of her hair away to look at the wound as she healed up a few small cuts.

She winced a little as he brushed a finger over the blood covered area, trying to find the injury itself. He muttered an apology and she just smiled a little in acceptance and tried to go back to concentrating on healing herself, but it was so hard when he was just there, looking at her with such heart-felt concern.

He gently stroked her soft, pale cheek with his thumb and enjoyed the sight of her shutting her eyes and the sound of her breathing evening out in relaxation. She let out a quiet sigh, and he moved his head a bit closer, unconsciously seeking out what he wanted. Soon enough, he tentatively brushed his lips against hers, and she flinched a little in shock and snapped her eyes open.

Gaara moved back, thinking that it wasn't what she wanted, but when she made eye contact with him, even without any experience in this area, he knew that he was wrong. He moved so he was kneeling in between her legs and wrapped an arm around her waist and put the other hand on the back of her neck.

They both moved towards each other, and their lips made contact again. It was slow and steady at first, but the intensity and passion grew until Hitori went to put her arms around his neck, but winced at the residual pain from the cut on her arm and got a bit dizzy from the head wound and the rush of adrenalin. She nearly fell off the seat, but Gaara caught her and she leant back until she wasn't dizzy any more.

Finally, she got a good look at what he was wearing when he stood up to his full height. Firstly, she noticed a few smudges of blood on his arm and hands and she didn't bother trying to cover up her checking him out and he smirked a little when he noticed. He had on a nice pair of plain black pants that were a little bit baggy and a deep crimson t-shirt that was a comfortable fit and had a bit of black print on it.

He looked  _damn_   _good_.

Kankuro was coming down the hall – Gaara and Hitori could tell by the sound of his foot steps and it was most likely that he made them audible in case he was going to interrupt something – and he popped his head through the door to tell them that dinner was ready.

With a nod from both of them, he left and Hitori looked up at him with quite the innocent look on her face, and he blushed a little and turned away. She giggled cutely and he pressed another soft kiss to her lips before helping her up and walking with her out to the dining room. They sat down, Kankuro and Temari taking notice of how closely they sat together.

Dinner was served, and Hitori dug in hungrily, since she hadn't eaten since about 10.30am that day. It was a wonderful feast and by the end everyone was insanely full and there was still food left over. Hitori decided that she would have a shower and get changed since everyone else was wearing something nicer than the clothes they usually wore around the house.

When she got to her room, and stripped off carefully, trying not to make it any more painful than it had to be and wrapped a towel around herself while she felt her chakra restore itself slowly as she walked to Temari's bedroom and to her en-suite. She turned on the shower and thoroughly enjoyed the hot water cascading over her body and watched as the dried blood turned the water a diluted shade of red and eventually became clean again after there was no more blood to wash off.

Her head and other wounds still hurt a bit, but she was waiting for her chakra to regenerate a little more so she wasn't too drained after healing herself up a little more. She checked to make sure the wound on her head was completely healed with a quick flash of chakra and deemed it okay to wash her hair, even though it would hurt a bit if she put pressure on the wound, which she made sure not to do.

Within about ten more minutes, she was finished and turned the taps off until no more water came through the shower head. She wrapped her big fluffy towel around herself that she had left here and whilst being trapped in her own thoughts, walked back to her room.

Well, she almost did until she walked straight into Gaara.

She stumbled back for a moment, but he quickly got a hold of her and made sure she wouldn't fall. He watched her with slight confusion for a minute, wondering what she was thinking about that kept her so immersed in thought that she must have not even realised her was there at all. But the small pink tinge on her cheeks and the tiny smile gave him a pretty good idea.

"Sorry...I was just spaced out." she muttered and gave him a quick apologetic smile.

He found her absolutely entrancing at that moment. With her hair dripping wet and dishevelled, clinging to her shoulders, upper back, neck and face. Grey eyes looking straight into his black-framed turquoise ones, warm body wrapped in a towel pressed against his slightly. He couldn't think of anything to say so he just averted his eyes and nodded faintly, knowing that he was probably blushing.

A small chuckle escaped her at seeing him flustered, and she decided to toy with him a little more, even though she did actually need someone's help with her dressings. She was just going to ask Temari, but she just couldn't resist.

"Um, could you give me a hand with something quickly?" she asked innocently, trying not to sound like she was enjoying his current state.

"Sure." he half-choked out, after realising that she was actually talking. He had a small, fleeting thought that he would probably put on a funny hat and dance around like a monkey for her right now if she asked.

They both walked back to her room, and she grabbed the bandages that he had set out earlier for her and moved the chair closer to her bed, sat down and hiked her leg up to rest on the bed. Gaara was still half-standing in the door way, and she didn't bother saying anything to him, just to let him stir for a while.

After she had bandaged up her thigh, which did make Gaara nervous because of the view, even from his vantage point behind her, she asked him to bandage up her arm, because it would have been too difficult to do a good job of it herself.

Hitori lifted her arm up and held it out for him, while he gently wrapped the dressing around it. When he was finished she thanked him and gave him a quick peck on the cheek, feeling rather daring. She went to walk over to her pack, planning on getting out the storage scrolls and unsealing them so she could get more of her clothes out and find something to wear, but was stopped when Gaara's arm snaked around her waist and pulled her back up against his chest.

Just going by his instincts, he nuzzled her neck a little and gave her a small nip, which made her yelp a little, but in a good way and whisper in her ear.

"I'm glad you're alright, Hitori." he pulled away and walked out, leaving her to dress in peace and also missing the scarlet blush that covered her cheeks.

She was definitely affected by his actions, and she wondered how the hell he was so damn good at that stuff while being so inexperienced. It would definitely stick with her most of the night, and she contemplated how her being injured had seemed to bring out the caring and protective side of him, remembering how he had looked so concerned and even angry when she mentioned the rogue nin.

To think that only a little over a week apart and they were already able to express themselves. Well, mostly. It's not like they had actually  _said_  anything about their feelings for each other, but the physical contact was a start.

After rummaging through the clothes she had gotten from one of the storage scrolls, she got out a comfortable dark blue tank top, and a pair of plain black pants that cut off just below the knees. She actually took an extra few seconds to quickly brush her hair, which was still wet, but some of it had started to dry, and then she was done.

For a moment, she wondered why she was going to more effort than usual, but she had learned that girls quite oftenly tried to impress the male who they liked, even subconsciously. She shrugged it off and walked out of her room, to hear the faint sound of talking and laughing getting louder.

Temari was sitting on the couch, next to Kankuro who was currently pouring sake into four cups, and Gaara was situated on the single seater, looking like a contented cat with a tiny smile on his face. He caught her eye and smiled a little more, and the other two siblings finally noticed her presence after a moment.

"The woman of the hour!" Kankuro said, and lifted up a full cup off the coffee table for her. She took it and gave him a nod of thanks. "Let's make a toast, shall we?" he exclaimed proudly, as Hitori leaned over and said spoke quietly to Temari.

"He's already had a fair bit, hasn't he?"

"Sure has." she replied a chuckle. Kankuro pretended not to hear, even though the two woman made it obvious and continued.

"To me having a new drinking buddy and wingman to pick out the best women for me, Temari having a new short-tempered female to go shopping with, and Gaara  _finally_  having a girlfriend!" he announced, and both him and Temari chuckled at Gaara and Hitori's tensing, but distracted them by saying 'Kanpai' and draining their cups in one go. Gaara and Hitori followed suit after a brief, embarrassed glance at each other, and put their cups back down on the table to be refilled by Kankuro, who surprisingly didn't spill any.

Hours later, everyone was rather affected by the alcohol, - Kankuro especially who was on the verge on passing out – and decided to call it a night. Gaara and Hitori were only a little bit intoxicated and Temari helped Kankuro to bed, even though she probably wouldn't make it to her own bed and Hitori took the chance to quickly get changed into some pyjamas before making sure that no one was snoring and drooling on the hard wood floor.

She pulled on the huge baggy t-shirt and small satin shorts and walked out to the living room, and to Kankuro's room to find him already asleep on his bed, on top of the covers. Satisfied that he would be fine, she made her way back she came before taking a left turn and peeking in Temari's room to find Gaara checking on her as well.

He smiled, seeing that she probably had the same idea as her and he left Temari as she was and Hitori shut the door behind him as he came out. As they strolled back in the direction of their rooms, it was silent, but comfortable.

Both of them had a hint of a smile on their face as they made their way through the halls and finally stopped out the front of Hitori's bedroom door. She looked up at him, biting her lip with uncertainty and her fingers fiddling around with the hem of the oversized shirt. Honestly, she wasn't trying to look adorable or any derivative of such an adjective, but she felt like a 12 year old girl looking at her crush and couldn't help the nervousness.

Gaara was having quite the inner debate, but in the end one side won in a landslide when Hitori smirked a little, still biting her lip. His eyes widened imperceptibly and he took a hold of her hand and started walking to his own bedroom. She followed, even though being very confused by the action.

The red-head opened his door and they both walked in, and he let go of her hand as he shut the door behind him, only to wrap his arms around her waist and pull her back close to his chest just as he did earlier. It was a move that Kankuro taught him and she seemed to like it earlier, so he decided to use it again only a little more shamelessly because of the alcohol intake.

Grey-eyes shut feeling his body warmth, and she enjoyed the contact before he moved around in front of her, with his arms still around her and smile a little and walk backwards, pulling her along with him.

He sat down on the bed and shuffled over to give her room to lay down and she obliged even though she looked slightly confused. They both laid down and he pulled the covers over them, and situated himself up against her with an arm gently over her smaller form and his nose pressed against her hair.

Surprisingly, they both swiftly fell into a deeper sleep than usual.

* * *

Hitori woke early in the morning when it was still dark and groaned unhappily until she cracked open tired eyes and momentarily freaked out when she recognised that she was  _not_  in her own room. She vaguely felt warmth behind her, and recalled what happened, even if it was a little hazy thanks to the sake.

Now that she thought about it, the sheets underneath her felt a little...damp. She rolled over enough to turn her head around to look at Gaara. He was laying on his back, covered in a layer of sweat, and looked very uncomfortable and in pain. Instantly, her inner medic switched on, and all previous grogginess forgotten, she sat up and moved to sit next to him and laid a hand on his bare chest and ignored the thought that asked when the hell he took his shirt off. With a quick pulse of chakra through his systems, she realised what was wrong.

He was sick.

"Shit." she muttered under her breath and leapt out of bed and ran to Temari's room.

Without thinking about anything other than Gaara, not remembering that Temari would be very hungover, if she wasn't still drunk and it would be a hard task to wake her. She all but ran over to her bedside and shook her until her eyes opened slowly. When she saw the woman's dark green eyes focus, a look of confusion came over her face.

"Hitori...What's wrong?" she asked and sat up, rubbing her eyes.

"Gaara's sick." Hitori answered, urgency and worry blatantly obvious in her voice. Temari's eyes went wide and she too leapt out of bed and immediately started getting dressed. "I'm not sure what it is just yet, but I need you to get a room in the hospital prepared as soon as you can. And I'll tell Kankuro after you leave and then we'll come up to the hospital with Gaara. Okay?"

Temari nodded and finished getting dressed and bolted out of her bedroom door. She heard the sound of the front door opening and shutting as she went to Kankuro's room. He was hanging half on, half off the bed and she did the same thing as she did with Temari and shook him until he was awake.

At first, he tried to swat at her and groaned something mostly unintelligible about leaving him the hell alone but when she said that Gaara was sick, he got up with wide eyes and asked if she was serious before she confirmed it.

"Temari has just left for the hospital to get him a room set up. I won't know much until I can get up there and run some tests. But we need to get him up there as soon as possible." she said as he got up and woke up for a moment before grabbing some clean clothes.

She left him to change and power walked back to Gaara's room and gently picked him up off the bed, bridal style. It didn't even cross her mind as to how backwards the scene was even as she walked out and met up with Kankuro who was ready to head up to the hospital. They left immediately, Hitori carrying Gaara the whole way, even after Kankuro offered to take over. She denied, telling him that she was actually sending chakra into his system to find out what was wrong as they went.

The idea may have only just came to her at that moment since she was freaking out a little, – something very unlike her - and immediately started sending chakra from her hands into his body and trying to find out what was wrong. It seemed that he had a bad fever and his temperature was up a couple of degrees as well.

She was able to deduce that he would be okay, and it might have only been a simple cold or maybe even a minor case of influenza if he didn't have a stronger immune system as he would have when Shukaku was sealed inside him.

All three of them finally arrived at the hospital, and Temari was waiting in the lobby for them, as well as several orderlies, and medics, waiting for their orders from her. Clearly, the blond kunoichi had told them everything they needed to know and they were escorted up the stairs to the best suite they had available.

Hitori gently put Gaara down on the bed and but her hands only left him for a moment and she went straight back to figuring out every single thing that was wrong. It seemed to be a simple viral infection, but it would be much harder for him to get rid of since his body was still not used to fighting off the pathogens without the extra boost from Shukaku.

Long-black hair swished around as she walked to the storage room, intent on getting something to help. Unfortunately, she had forgotten to get the plants and herbs from one of her storage scrolls that she had brought back here from Konoha, and as she checked the cupboards for an ingredient she was looking for, she realised that it wasn't there after seeing an empty container labelled with the particular plant name.

Cursing under her breath, she stomped out and back to Gaara's room, where a few of the actually decent medics she had been training were looking after him.

"Kankuro." she turned to the brunette who looked worried as hell. "I need you to go and get the three scrolls that are on the desk in my room. One of them has medical supplies and I can't remember which one it is right now. I'll be in the storage room when you get back."

He nodded and took off as fast as he could and she went back to the storage room and started making the formula the best she could. She was concentrating so hard, that she didn't even notice Kankuro come in the door until he was standing right next to her, holding the small scrolls in one hand.

Thanking him briefly, she laid one out on the ground behind her, since there was no room at the table in front of her, and made a one-handed seal before a bunch of random items from her house back home appeared in a puff of smoke. Cursing again, she made a few seals, and they disappeared and she rolled up the scroll. Unfortunately, it was the same result again, and she cursed louder before trying the third one, which was the right one.

She grabbed a small container of the right ingredient and sealed the other things back inside and picked up the scrolls, placing them at one end of the table and she instantly got down to work. This would take about 20 minutes to mix up, and it had to sit for at least two hours before it was ready, so she would have to keep Gaara stable until it was prepared.

Kankuro went back to keep an eye on Gaara and a little over twenty minutes later, Hitori joined him. She pulled up a chair and sat at his bedside, hands on his chest, her green chakra flowing into him, starting the healing process.

Most of it could be fixed just with her chakra, but some of the cellular level stuff could be a little too risky because of his weak immune system. So she hoped that the medicine would give him a big leap in recovery and she could take care of the rest from there. Kankuro and Temari watched her carefully, with worry filled eyes at their brother's slightly pained expression.

"What's wrong with him, Hitori?" Temari asked after a while, since it took her a while to build up the courage.

"Oh, I'm sorry. He'll be fine. Usually for us, this kind of thing would just be a cold or maybe a bit of the flu, but because Gaara's immune system still hasn't adjusted to being without Shukaku's extra protection, it's just hitting him much harder. He'll be back to normal in a week at the most. It isn't contagious either." she told them, only quickly glancing over her shoulder at them for a moment before going back to staring into space in front of her.

"Okay. How long will it take for that medicine to be ready?" Kankuro asked, hoping that it would be soon so it could relieve his younger brother of most of his discomfort.

"We've got about another two hours to wait for that. I'll be personally looking after him the whole time, so don't freak out." she reassured them, although she sounded more freaked out than both of them put together. They both knew that Gaara was tough, and that Hitori was a great medic, so they weren't dying with worry.

It was normal for Hitori to feel flustered in this situation though. Being a medic, it was terrible to know that she  _couldn't_  save someone, no matter how much of her healing chakra she poured into their system, and she couldn't help but get a little worked up when there was even the most fleeting chance that someone she cared for or respected would be in serious trouble.

Temari got up and walked over to her and Hitori flinched when she put a hand on her shoulder. She looked up at the eldest child of the Yondaime Kazekage and tried to put on a bit of a brave face.

"Hitori. He'll be alright. You said it yourself. We know that you'll get him up and at 'em in no time. So  _you_  should stop freaking out." she scolded lightly with a smile on her face, trying to calm the woman's nerves as much as she could.

"I know, but I can't help it. I still have to go and check on Ashinami later, and send a letter to Naruto telling him that I got back, and about the attack as well. And I'll have to include this too, since he would get totally pissed if I kept it from him -" the pale woman started rambling but was cut off when Temari put a hand over her mouth, with a smirk on her face.

"It-will-be-fine." she enunciated each word to reinforce her point, and gently shook Hitori's shoulder once she relaxed a bit.

"We'll go back home for a while to shower and stuff and notify the council. Then we'll bring back something to eat in time for the medicine to be ready, okay?" the taller woman said and Hitori nodded in response.

They walked out, and she watched them go until she could no longer see them. She took a deep breath and continue her chakra flow into Gaara for at least the next fifteen minutes before she decided that would be enough for the moment if she didn't want to wear herself out too quickly.

Usually with something like this, a 15 minutes on and 15 minutes off system was the best way to go. It helped to make sure that the medic lasted longer, and could allow them to eat and rest a little in between to try and restore some of their lost chakra.

Also, too much chakra being forced into someone's body could turn out bad for them sometimes as well. There had been a few cases she had heard of where it just overloaded their immune system. So, for the next few minutes, she crossed her arms on the bed and rested her head on them until the clock in her mind told her that it had probably been about fifteen minutes.

The next fifteen minutes were spent healing the red-haired Kazekage again, and the next fifteen were spent resting again. After the third fifteen minute period, Gaara's eyes slowly cracked open and Hitori smiled brightly at him, glad to see him awake so soon. He groaned a little and looked at her tiredly through half-lidded eyes.

"Gaara, you're a bit sick. Just get some rest and you'll be fine before you know it." Hitori spoke to him quietly and allowed herself to gently stroke his cheek, since no one was around to see it.

It seemed to soothe him, and she continued the action as he nodded and took a deep breath before shifting a little and closing his eyes. Within a few minutes, he was asleep again, and she rested until she had to start healing again.

Before she knew it, it had been at least an hour and forty five minutes since Temari and Kankuro had left, and said siblings popped back in the room, holding a bag of food each. She told them about him waking up, even though it was only for a short moment, and they were very pleased to hear the news.

"How did the council take it?" Hitori asked as she finished up another fifteen minute healing session and lifted out her food from one of the bags.

"They weren't too happy, but what can you do? Who cares. They're all just annoying old men anyway." Kankuro said, recalling the disgruntled and displeased faces of the council members when he told them that Gaara wasn't well and that he would be in the hospital for about a week.

Temari glared at him, even though there was a glint of amusement in her eyes, and one corner of her mouth was turned upwards in a tiny smirk. Kankuro just shrugged and Hitori shook her head at their antics. They really did crack her up. All of them ate up and when she had finished, Hitori got up and went to the storage room.

She placed the medicine into two separate syringes and left the mess there for someone else to clean up later and walked back to Gaara's room. Setting one down on the bedside table, she rolled Gaara's arm over a little and injected him with the liquid before going and sitting back down on her chair and starting another healing session. Instantly, she could feel the effects of the medicine kicking in, and his temperature slowly started to drop.

A collective, relieved sigh sounded in the room when Gaara's face changed to look much more calm and peaceful in his sleep and Hitori was glad that some of his discomfort had gone. She decided it would be best to leave him for a while after this, and she knew that if she kept going that her chakra would be too low if something went wrong.

She didn't move from the chair, but just crossed her arms underneath her head and closed her eyes for a while. Maybe she could sleep and regain some chakra...

* * *

An unknown amount of time later, she woke up half on the bed, with her left arm and left leg dangling off, Temari and Kankuro no where to be seen. A hand moved on top of her head and she freaked out and snapped her head around to see Gaara, who was awake. She stared at him for a moment until he smiled a little, which caused her to snap out of it.

"How are you feeling?" she asked and sat up, rubbing her eyes.

"I'm still feeling cold, and sweating a little, but that's just from the fever. I haven't been able to get back to sleep since I woke up about half an hour ago." he answered, stroking her hair slightly.

"Do you want to go back to sleep?" she said, with a knowing look in her eyes. He smiled and shook his head.

"I'm fine. You shouldn't have worn yourself out so much." he scolded lightly, with a fractionally raised brow.

"Ah, I'm just not used to doing stuff like that any more. I'm fine now. That was a _good_ nap." she replied and stretched her arms above her head with a shadow of a smile on her pale features.

They talked quietly for a while, just about random impersonal things, even though it was a little bit uncomfortable and finally Hitori told Gaara that she was going to put him to sleep whether he wanted her to or not. He reluctantly accepted and sincerely thanked her before shifting over a little and closing his eyes.

Hitori reached up and put two fingers to each temple and sent a small, slow pulse of chakra into him, and his breathing gradually evened out. His expression was relaxed and peaceful, even though there was still a light sheen on sweat on his brow, and his temperature wasn't back to normal yet. The medicine's effects were working great and he would soon enough be in good shape again after some rest.

She wondered where Temari and Kankuro went, but figured that they probably had some things to do and might have been filling in for Gaara so she left him be and walked down the hall and turned right to stand in front of Ashinami's room. Apparently he was almost fully recovered and would probably be released maybe today or tomorrow.

Brown eyes caught grey ones as soon as she opened the door and he smiled brightly at her, glad to see her back. She shut the door behind her and walked over to his bedside.

"How you doing, Ashinami?" Hitori asked casually and held a hand over his body, just checking to see how well he was healing internally.

"Pretty good. I've missed having you around. You're a much better medic than most of the other's here." he said quietly with a slightly disgruntled tone, and she instantly recognised 'that' look he was throwing her way. Her small smile threatened to falter, but she kept it in tact and they continued talking about his treatment and what the other medics had been doing for him when she was away.

"So, you were in Konoha right?" he asked conversationally, wanting to confirm what the other medics had told him.

"Yeah. It was partially for official business, but most of the time I was just hanging out with the Hokage." she replied casually and removed her hand from his chest, feeling satisfied with his recovery.

"Hanging out with the  _Hokage_? As you do." he said with shock. Since when do random shinobi 'hang out' with the Hokage.

"I'm actually good friends with him, believe it or not." Hitori replied with a slight chuckle, fully expecting that kind of reaction. It wasn't usually the every day information you learnt about someone.

"Fair enough then. How's the Kazekage doing?" the brown-haired man inquired, since he had heard about the former jinchuriki being admitted to the hospital earlier today.

"How do you know about that?" she replied with a black brow raised and narrowed eyes.

"A few of the nurses were talking about it outside my room and I could hear them." he answered honestly. He hadn't meant to overhear, he just did.

She nodded in understanding, but rolled her eyes mentally at the stupidity of the nurses. It was supposed to be kept under wraps so the people in the village wouldn't find out and therefore not freak out. They had already come very close to losing Gaara permanently once before when Deidara from the Akatsuki had captured him all those years ago and Hitori was sure that they wouldn't want to fear that happening again, except this time there would be no one to perform Kisho Tensei on him.

There was a knock on the door and a nurse entered with some lunch for Ashinami to have and Hitori bid him goodbye and strolled around the hospital, checking in on new patients and older ones that were still there from before she left.

After her quick rounds, she walked back up to Gaara's room and sat there with him, doing random hospital paper work just for the sake of being occupied while he rested. There was only a small pile that she had taken from the nurse's station on that floor on her way back, and within half an hour, it was already done.

It felt like she had gotten enough chakra back to do another quick healing session, so she started on that and her grey-eyes scanned his face casually, just looking at him. He looked a little older than the photo she had seen of him and Naruto from a few years ago.

His features were nothing like a boy's any more. They had thinned out into the face of a man who was oddly attractive, even with the dark rings around his eyes from insomnia, and the kanji for 'love' on the left side of his forehead. Hitori felt it was okay to admit to herself that she actually rather liked his pale-turquoise eyes that contrasted with his red hair.

A smile came across her face and she sighed a little as she continued healing him...

* * *

It had been a week since Gaara was admitted to the hospital and he was sitting in his office, catching up on work even though Hitori had nearly lost her temper trying to tell him to take it easy at home. There was so many missions to assign and so much paper work to be filled out and signed.

He inhaled deeply and sighed as he scribbled his signature on the bottom of one sheet and put it aside to find an almost blank sheet, waiting to be completed. His eyes closed for a moment before he opened them and set himself to work. Fortunately, he was feeling fine now, even if he got a little drained quicker than normal.

A knock on the door resounded through the room and he bid the people outside entry, knowing that it was Temari and Kankuro with Ashinami, who had just been released from the hospital. The blond woman, and two brown haired men walked in and Kankuro shut the door behind them. Ashinami bowed respectfully and Gaara gave him a small nod of acknowledgement in return before shuffling a few papers to find the right ones.

"We've just received news that the ANBU team I sent out after the shinobi that killed your team and nearly killed you were killed. Therefore, I have decided that we will get a specialised force together and they will track them down and take them out -"

He was cut off by Hitori walking straight in through the door, with wind-blown hair and looking like she had run from where ever she was previously.

"Gaara, sorry I'm late. Had to...am I interrupting?" she started casually and trailed off after feeling the serious aura radiating from within the room and looked around while scratching the back of her head.

"No, it's fine. Please come in. We require your expertise on a matter at hand." the Kazekage responded and watched as she shrugged and shut the door. Ashinami looked confused, but stayed quiet, wondering why a Konoha shinobi was needed in this situation. "I'm sorry to bring you into this Hitori, but we have encountered a similar occurrence to one you have experienced before." he continued, giving her a look that she instantly understood.

"How many are there?" she inquired, her face blank and voice toneless, indicating her seriousness.

"We think that there are roughly 13 of them. When we received the news, they were hiding out two days north from here." he continued and handed her the report they had received from the ANBU before they were killed.

She browsed over it quickly and handed it back to Gaara when she was done. It was a bit of a task for her to keep a hold of her emotions, but she knew that this was something she could help with.

"I've decided I want you to lead the mission." the red-head stated simply as if he wasn't talking about bringing back all of Hitori's bad memories that occasionally came back to her in dreams, as well as giving a shinobi from a different village the top spot on such an important mission.

" _What!?_ " Ashinami yelled out of the blue, being the first one to recover from the initial shock. "I wanted to lead this mission! It's my right as the one who survived!"

"Ashinami. Please understand that I am not doing this to upset you. I have made this decision because I believe that it is our best option." Gaara stayed calm and laced his fingers together in front of him on the desk.

He really didn't want to have to put Hitori through this, and she still hadn't mentioned anything about finding out what had happened on that mission, probably because she didn't want to think about it. Even though he saw the reluctance in her eyes, he also saw her conviction and he just hoped that she wouldn't be angry at him for doing this to her, even if he would understand perfectly if she was.

"Do you mean to say our best option is getting a shinobi from another fucking village and assigning them to a mission that  _Suna_  should be taking care of?"

"The Hokage has already given his permission for Hitori to lead this mission and as I said, it is our best option."

It was quiet for a minute, and Hitori watched Ashinami closely and took notice of his right hand that was twitching over his leg holster. Within less than a split second, she was in front of him, holding him by the throat and his feet were dangling a few inches off the ground. Her eyes showed nothing and her blank face somehow managed to look absolutely murderous.

"Do you realise who you were about to attack, Ashinami?...It seems that you inability to control your emotions and think rationally should be another reason why you are not suitable for leading this mission. Your rage would make you reckless..." she spoke quietly with no hint of emotion in her cold voice, staring up at his brown eyes that were pleading for air.

She let him go and he dropped back to the ground, doubled over, coughing and gasping for air. Neither Temari or Kankuro had moved from the spot they were standing in, but the look on their faces and their stances said that they had also noticed what Ashinami was going to do.

When he was able to move again, Ashinami stormed out, not wanting to put up with any more of this. An awkward silence came over the four of them, not really knowing what to say, but Gaara spoke up first.

"Anyway. Temari and Kankuro will help you chose candidates for the mission. You may organise it however you like, but I want you to leave by the end of the week."

"Understood, Kazekage-sama." Hitori bowed respectfully, as she always did even to Naruto when he assigned her a mission. She raised an eyebrow after recalling some of his earlier words. "Oi, how did you already get Naruto's permission?" she asked casually, contrasting insanely with her previous tone, making him smirk a little at both that and the question itself.

"I haven't." he replied and his smirk grew a bit when she smirked as well.

"I'll get to work right away." she bowed her head, turned around on one foot and walked out of them.

Even though this would totally suck, going through all this trouble again, she would not fail this time.

_Not on my life..._


	7. Mission

Chapter 7 - Mission  
It was the day before Hitori's team was supposed to leave for the mission. The wind was whipping up around her, black hair waving around her smaller form as she watched her hand picked team going through their flawless plan that she had spent hours and hours agonising over.

Temari, Kankuro and her had spent a whole day just trying to put together a good team, then they had been training ever since. The team was 15 strong, including the siblings, and Hitori. Both siblings could tell that this was troubling for her, but since she hadn't told them why or acted like she had any interest in revealing why, they had kept to themselves and hadn't asked. They knew that if she wanted to tell them, she would.

"Okay guys. That will do for today. Go home, get a good rest. We will be leaving at first light tomorrow." Hitori's voice sounded out and everyone stopped moving and bid their goodbyes before heading off home.

Ashinami was allowed to be on the team, only because of Hitori's sympathy with his position, and he mostly ignored everyone during the training sessions but sent the Kazekage's brother and sister a respectful nod, and a much smaller one to Hitori before going in the opposite direction knowing that if he didn't at least do that, he would probably get kicked off.

He had been thoroughly pissed off at first, but when Hitori had personally come to him and asked him whether he wanted to be on the team, he had gained a new respect for her. The brunette man wasn't stupid. He had figured out that something was up with Hitori as soon as Gaara had brought her into his office when they were being briefed on the mission.

Even though he was still upset about not being able to lead himself, he didn't contest with Hitori's rule, mostly just because he didn't want the crap beaten out of him and also because he would probably get kicked off the mission if he did. He was just glad to be on the mission.

Hitori smiled at Temari and Kankuro who were currently strolling over to her and all three of them began heading in the direction of home, where Gaara would have most likely only just arrived since it was a little after 5pm. The blond kunoichi tried to make conversation with the grey-eyed woman, but she was being insufferably stubborn and stayed mostly silent, using mostly one worded answers.

She knew that Hitori wasn't trying to be rude, but this quiet act was starting to get on her nerves. Usually the two of them would be taking a dig at Kankuro, or talking about something that they had done over the years. But the Konoha jonin was withdrawn, like a turtle into it's shell, and Temari was being pushed to her limits.

"So, what should we have for dinner tonight?" she asked conversationally, and punched Kankuro in the stomach when he went to put in his two cents. Hitori simply shrugged and made a small sound symbolising her saying 'Whatever'. A vein popped in Temari's forehead, and it was the last straw.

"Alright! I've had it! Hitori, what the hell is wrong? I'm sure that if you wanted to talk to us about it, that you would, but you are being so damn closed off that it's making me depressed!" she said loudly, finally losing her temper.

The black-haired woman didn't react outwardly, knowing that she should have been expecting this sooner or later. A low, long sigh sounded from her and she nodded in acceptance. She couldn't keep acting like this forever. When they walked in the door of their home, she looked up at her two friends and the look in her eyes told them that it was something painful.

Temari's expression changed from frustrated to concerned, and Kankuro walked over and put an supporting arm over Hitori's much smaller shoulders and lead her towards the living room. All three of them sat down, and at that moment Gaara emerged from the hallway his room was located in, but because of the serious aura he felt, he approached silently and said nothing.

"I guess I haven't got much of a choice but to tell you... A few years back, I was put in charge of a mission almost exactly like this one. A group of rogue shinobi had killed Konoha shinobi and stolen important information from them. I chose a team and we went after them. They were all slaughtered in front of my eyes, but one of them survived long enough to inject me with a formula that kept me alive but made it seem like I was dead and it was all because of...my jutsu." she surmised quickly, not wanting to go into too much detail.

"The Kage Oni jutsu." Kankuro spoke up sounding uncharacteristically serious.

Hitori looked up at him with slightly widened eyes, and then turned her gaze to Temari, then Gaara, who all had a knowing expression on their face. Clearly, they knew who she really was now. She sighed again.

"Yeah. That would be me." she admitted reluctantly, averting her eyes to the floor below her.

She didn't really mind the three of them knowing about her being the 'Kage Oni', but barely anyone knew in the first place aside Kakashi, Naruto and Tsunade and it was just the idea of more people knowing that made her the slightest bit uncomfortable. The lengths she had been to over the years to cover it up was almost ridiculous and these three had just managed to figure it out without her even telling them.

"Hitori. You do realise that...if you hadn't survived that mission...we may not have won the war..." Kankuro continued, still sounding oddly serious. She went to contest and argue with his statement, but Temari's voice stopped her.

"He's right. Who else would have been able to single-handedly stop that thirty strong specialised force that allowed us to break through the enemies defences? No one that I can think of!" she encouraged louder, trying to win over her friend.

Grey-eyes fell on Gaara, who had said nothing so far, as if waiting for him to support his two siblings, almost like she needed to hear him say that they were right as well.

"Temari and Kankuro are right." he stated simply, fully agreeing that without the power of the Kage Oni, there would have been a good chance that they wouldn't have won the war against Madara and been subjected to his Moon's Eye Plan. Since the jutsu was, as far as they knew, the only one of it's kind, it was only natural that it was not known about and used almost like a secret weapon.

She breathed out deeply and her face scrunched up a little with her inner debate. They were right, but she hated the fact that her comrades died trying to protect her and keep her alive. She would have found it more honourable and true to herself if she had died along side them.

But there was a good chance that no one would have been able to break through the enemies defences, since there was no knowledge of any concealment jutsu that was as flawless as her own. Let alone anyone who was strong enough to use such a thing to it's limits, and push said limits a bit more.

Gaara watched intensely as something akin to acceptance slowly came across her face. She was still clearly unnerved by the whole ordeal, especially with going through something so similar all over again, and yet with just a few words from the three of them – and most likely Naruto as well -, she had finally started the road to getting over being the last one left alive after that mission.

A small, but sad smile came across her face and she lifted her head up to look at them all. It felt like the weight that she had been carrying around for all those years was finally starting to lift off, and it felt much better.

"Don't feel guilty, or like it was your fault. You know that you couldn't have prevented it, and your comrades would have known as well. Be proud that they gave their all and made such a end." Gaara spoke quietly and didn't take his turquoise eyes off her grey ones.

She nodded slightly, and the immense worry she had been feeling about the mission tomorrow lessened as well. It was surprising that he could have such an effect on her, but it's not like their connection hadn't been a little different to what she had expected with the man who was the youngest child of the late Yondaime Kazekage and had succeeded his father to become the Godaime Kazekage.

But then again, it wasn't like she even expected to become such good friends with his siblings, even to the point where she would reveal who she really was, and tell them about her most painful experience that was actually supposed to be a classified file. Classified even from her, but she was sure that was just for the reason that she probably would have gone ballistic after finding out that she had been right about being kept alive if Naruto wasn't there with her.

All in all, she couldn't say that she was unhappy with the way things had turned out. Naruto seemed to be a little less worried about her as well, even though he had been a little concerned about how she was feeling about accepting the leading role to the mission, probably because of the memories it would bring back, and especially only just after finding out about the reason she was alive.

Temari was good for her since she was also a fiery woman, who still had her soft side, even though she never let anyone but her siblings (and maybe a certain extremely intelligent Konoha shinobi who could manipulate shadows) to see, and it seemed that she had allowed Hitori to start to see that side as well.

Kankuro was always a lot of fun, and kept her amused whenever he was around, and occasionally had a profound insight on particular things. Usually she was never the type to run around and do stupid things just for the sake of it, let alone get in laughing fits for several minutes after seeing someone try and carry a bunch of books to a different room, trip over a table and get a nosebleed from hitting it so hard, pick up all the books then run into a wall after getting dizzy and hit the back of his head, but Kankuro had changed that.

And Gaara...well...Gaara was just...indescribable. There wasn't really any way to put words to what was going on between them. Hell, not like they even knew. It was pretty obvious that they liked each other, and there was definitely some sort of...chemistry between them, so to speak, but their lack of experience stopped them from knowing what to do and how to act around each other.

Maybe she would try and talk to him about it before she left, just to give him some time on his own to think it over. Yes, that's what she would do. In fact, now would be the best idea.

Hitori went to stand up, only to see a hand waving in front of her face and all three siblings staring at her like she had grown an extra leg...that was protruding from her forehead. She suddenly realised that she must have been just sitting there, thinking for at least 5-10 minutes in complete silence.

"S-sorry. I was thinking." she blurted out, still in a bit of a daze.

"You certainly were. It was almost like you were in a coma." Kankuro joked, going back to his usual carefree self, and then stood up from the couch and stretched his arms above his head. "Anyway, I'm going to get some sleep since we're leaving at dawn tomorrow. Night all." he strolled off in the direction of his room and the other three people bid him goodnight as he went.

"I'm going to do the same, and you should too Hitori." said Temari and she waved goodnight over her shoulder and was gone as well.

Hitori looked over at Gaara, who was already looking at her with still slightly concerned eyes. She gave him a reassuring smile, and he eyed her for a minute before relaxing. Silently, they both walked in the direction of their hallway and they both hesitated when Hitori's door came into sight.

Neither of them knew if their relationship dynamics had changed enough for them to be staying in the same bed. The other night was a little different since they had both ingested a little bit of alcohol and most of the usual inhibitions were much more than just out the window.

Gaara abruptly realised that Hitori might not come back from the mission she was leading tomorrow. Even though she had mostly gotten past being the only one to survive the last time she went through this, he wouldn't put it past her to sacrifice herself to save someone else. Kankuro or Temari in particular. His awkward and shy aura was completely forgotten in moments and intense worry set in.

He had faith in his siblings, and both of them were certainly formidable opponents, even more so when working together, and Hitori on her own would give even Naruto, who was like a small army on his own, a bit of trouble. The team they had assembled was definitely a well-rounded, smart and skilled bunch, and they had been training all week, but that didn't mean that they would be successful.

It didn't mean that they would all come home.

There was also another problem. They didn't know exactly how far away the target was by now. In the report Gaara had received, which had been sent by the village's fastest bird that had covered the two day shinobi pace in a bit under half a day, it said that the group had left at least 2 hours prior to when the doctor of the town had gotten the chance to send the message.

So firstly, he would have to worry about them making the trip there, and having enough supplies to make sure that they were fit and at 100% for when they actually intercepted the target. Then there was the fight itself, not to mention the trip home.

Hitori instantly noticed the change in his demeanour, and the concern that glazed his black-framed eyes. She waved a hand in front of his face to snap him out of his trance and he flinched slightly and looked straight into her pale-grey/silver eyes.

She mustered all the confidence she could and huffed before she gave him a light, but firm slap upside the head. His eyes went wide as saucers and his body tensed, since that was certainly not was he was expecting from her and he blinked at her with still wide eyes while she stared back at him.

"Don't worry so much. We'll be fine. I might just be doing you a favour by leading this mission, but to me this is a mission exactly the same as one sanctioned by Naruto." the smaller woman glared defiantly at him, her eyes demanding that he stop worrying so much.

After a moment, he sighed and averted his eyes from hers, knowing that he wouldn't be able to stop worrying a hell of a lot, no matter how much she tried to tell him that everything would be alright. Temari and Kankuro had both learned and accepted long ago that it was pointless and that they couldn't prevent him from being overly concerned for their safety every time he sent them out on a mission.

They both knew that lives would be on the line, and there was no guarantee of success, as there never usually was on shinobi missions, especially ones such as this where the skill level, style, technique, elemental affinity, jutsu and team work of the opponent would have to be gauged on the spot.

And even if they were successful, who said they would still survive? Hitori had hand picked two other medics to accompany them, since she wouldn't be able to take care of the other twelve shinobi, especially if some, or most of them were in critical conditions or half dead. If the medics ran out of chakra or passed out from exhaustion, there was no guarantee that the injured shinobi would survive through that time.

Hitori continued to see his face contorted minutely in thought and finally, after standing there idly for a moment, hoping he would snap out of it himself, she lifted her thumb and pointer finger up towards his forehead, and flicked him. Hard.

Gaara's head flew back and he collected himself for a moment before clutching a hand to his sore forehead and looked at Hitori with a slightly disgruntled expression. He noticed her furious one, and his temper died almost instantly. Grey-eyes were narrowed, brow furrowed, nose scrunched up and mouth twisted. She looked...adorable.

Laughter bubbled inside his chest and eventually escaped from his mouth. It wasn't very loud and it didn't last very long, but it was definitely a laugh. The black-haired female's expression went from furious to utterly perplexed and almost incredulous as she watched the Godaime Kazekage laugh for at least a good 30 seconds before calming down.

He looked back at her, and beamed – in his own way – until her confused face turned into a sweet, but small smile. Swiftly, he bent down and pressed a light kiss to her cheek before pulling back and continuing on his way down the hall, Kazekage robes gliding behind him gracefully.

The red head didn't see the kunoichis blush that dotted her cheeks, nose, even the tops of her ears a little. She shook it off and awkwardly followed him down the hallway, wondering if this is what he wanted her to do.

That question was answered when he opened the door, and moved aside for her to walk past him. She smiled meekly up at him, nervousness and shyness setting in. Gaara quietly shut the door behind them and moved over to his dresser and opened the drawers to look for something for him and for Hitori to wear to bed since they had just walked straight past her room.

She quickly used his shower while he was sorting out the clothes, and thoroughly enjoyed the feeling of being wrapped up in his big, red – what a surprise – fluffy, towel after she was finished and stepped out to find him sitting on the bed with two sets of clothes next to him.

The man smiled at her and gestured to the large red shirt, and simple pair of black boxers he had gotten out for her to wear. She thanked him as he walked past her and into the bathroom, the scent of his soap and shampoo as well as her natural scent filling his nostrils. While Gaara was showering, Hitori quickly dressed and got into bed.

She was nearly half asleep when Gaara emerged from the bathroom, smelling clean and fresh and dressed in the exact same outfit she was dressed in. A quiet snort of amusement escaped her and she rolled her eyes, realising how partial he must be to sleeping in this particular outfit.

He walked over and got in bed, and quickly pressed another kiss to her cheek before making himself comfortable with an arm around her shoulders, and turning off the lamp on his bedside table.

Only when the light went out, did they both allow a large smile to come across each of their faces, and slowly their breathing evened out

And even with the underlying feeling of dread about the next day, both of them slept better than ever.

5am came, and both Gaara and Hitori's body clocks woke them shortly after. A few minutes of idle silence passed, and the small contemplative time that passed between them meant more than they could express with words.

They both heard Temari and Kankuro getting up and walking around the house, preparing to leave for the mission, and they both knew that they had to face reality. Slowly, they both rose, getting out of each side of the bed, not looking at each other because of nervousness and not really wanting to face that part of the music yet.

Gaara was hoping desperately that Hitori and his two siblings would come out of this mission unharmed, but he had a feeling that his luck had run short. Hitori just wanted Gaara to stop worrying so much, even though she knew it was completely understandable, and she knew (hoped) that they'd all be fine.

Both of them were still facing away from each other while they dressed and Gaara slowly gathered a few pieces of paper and a few files for work while Hitori quietly waited, leaning up against the wall next to the door. He walked over to her, looking straight at her, and she looked straight back at him, both struggling over what to say or if saying anything at all would help.

Instead, Gaara put his work down on the bed and turned back to Hitori, who looked noticeably nervous and a little shy. The red head gently pushed some of her bangs out of the way and cupped her face in his pale hands.

He moved closer and felt Hitori's arms wrap around him and saw her blush before they both closed their eyes and Gaara's lips made contact with Hitori's. They didn't move until the need for air became dire, and eventually pulled back to breath. After a moment, she sweetly brushed her nose against his and he smiled before they let each other go.

The same type of smile was on both their faces – the kind of smile that people have when they realise how much someone cares for them – and it took them another few seconds to turn to the door, open it and walk out into the rest of the house where Kankuro and Temari both were.

A quick breakfast was made, and three back-packs with food, medical supplies, weapons and various scrolls had already been set out and placed just inside the front door. Naturally Hitori's was a bit bigger to make way for medical supplies that none of the other shinobi (aside the two other medic nin) would have, like poisons, antidotes, various herbs and plants, soldier pills and tonnes of scrolls with various medical information and jutsu.

Her katana was strapped to her back, her leg holster full of kunai on side and poisoned senbon on the other side and her chakra was at 100%. Kankuro and Temari looked like they were ready to go and all four of them walked out the front door after a moment of knowing silence.

Gradually they got closer to the village gates were Hitori could already sense about six or seven presences. Gaara was going to wait with them until they left, and there was still approximately 20 more minutes until sunrise. Nods of acknowledgement were given and respectful greetings were given back, especially towards the leader of their mission and the Kazekage.

10 more minutes passed, and now they were only waiting on Ashinami and the two medics. Some shinobi had asked about them, but Hitori told them that they were actually in the hospital, making sure that Ashinami was fully recovered and able to be on the mission. It didn't take long for them to be seen walking over towards the gates and join their comrades for this unpredictable mission.

Just as Hitori was about to speak, two more shinobi appeared and walked towards their group. Gaara looked towards her saying that it was okay, so she didn't bother thinking anything of it.

Hitori stepped forward and began to speak. "Alright. Now that everyone is here. Firstly, I'd like to thank you all for accepting this mission and working so hard to train for it, I appreciate it. Secondly, as every shinobi mission is, this could be extremely dangerous and it would be naive to say that everyone will come back unharmed. In fact, I expect the opposite. I cannot tell you how strong our opponents are, nor how many there are, not even their techniques and styles. But I can tell you, is that our force is one of the strongest I have seen, and that I believe we can defeat them!"

She had tried to practice some sort of speech in her head as they were getting ready this morning, just to psyche up the team, but in the end, everything that she thought of didn't sound right and instead she just decided to wing it. And it seemed to work.

Gaara stepped forward next. "Everybody. I also would like to personally thank you for accepting this mission. You have been granted the opportunity of having a great leader, as well as Suna's two best jonin to accompany you. As Hitori said, we cannot guarantee that you will not be harmed, but I too believe that you can defeat the enemies and come back here, to your home. I have asked these two to stay in the village for a while and help the people clean up and assist them with repairs. Good luck." he said, calmly and with a reassuring tone.

Hitori turned to him and gave him a small smile and a single nod which he returned, and almost everything that they didn't know how to say passed through their eyes at the moment. Then, he turned to both his siblings, nodding at them as well, telling them to return home safely.

A moment later, the sun rose above the horizon, shining it's bright and beautiful light on the world and everyone knew that it was time for them to leave.

"Let's move out!" Hitori exclaimed loudly, and the team of fourteen Suna shinobi, and one Konoha ninja began to walk out the village gates and through the deserts of the Land of Wind.

The Godaime Kazekage stayed to watch them, as the sun continued to rise, and did not move from that same spot until he could no longer see the black dot that was made up of fourteen shinobi, and the three most important people in the world to him.

"Finally! We're here!" Kankuro said loudly as they walked into the village that had notified Suna of the rogue shinobi that had raided their village two days after they had departed from Suna.

There were a few broken windows here and there, as well as some small stalls being in pieces on the ground. Houses had holes through the walls, shops were completely destroyed. Hitori was sure that it would have been much, much worse just after the group had left. They walked through the village, and the people living their were eyeing them cautiously until they noticed the Suna hitai-ite.

A middle aged woman walked up to them with a happy smile on her face. "Thank goodness you are here! The village's doctor will be able to tell you everything. Right this way."

The woman began to lead them towards the doctor's office, and there was various people of all ages standing outside of it, with bandages covering random parts of their bodies, suggesting injuries. The woman began shooing some of them out of the way, saying over and over again that the shinobi were here. Finally, they got to the doorway and she looked back at them, wondering how they would all fit inside the building. Without even thinking about it, Hitori took charge.

"Kankuro, Temari, and you two with me. Everyone else, wait out here." she gestured to the two shinobi Gaara had asked to help out here, and the five of them went through the doorway and saw that there were even more people in here, waiting for medical treatment.

Amongst them, was a blonde haired man, tending to a young child. As soon as he saw them, he stood up and walked over instantly with a relieved look on his face. He smiled and introduced himself as Takumi. Kankuro and Temari didn't bother with the pleasantries, so Hitori was the only one who introduced herself, though she used a fake name.

She explained to him that the shinobi team that was with her was in pursuit of the group that had raided their village and they would be leaving two shinobi to assist with the clean-up and rebuilding process. One of said shinobi added that they had a small amount of medical training, so they could also help out the injured.

Before everything dragged on too long, she left the two shinobi and bid goodbye to Takumi and the middle-aged woman who had spotted them earlier. The team moved on yet again after having a quick rest to eat and drink something just outside the village.

Now the hard part had started...

"Find anything Pakkun?" Hitori asked for the fourth time that day.

It was 8 hours since they had stopped in at the small village that had been raided and they had all stopped to rest for a few hours while Hitori did some scouting with the ninken. She sighed loudly when the pug shook his head apologetically.

As if the heavens themselves had heard her sigh of disappointment, a distant howl of one of the ninken sounded through the trees. It sounded like one of the smaller dogs, and immediately Pakkun and Hitori set off in that direction. Hitori had sent them out on a rather wide range to try and smell out any large groups that smelled like shinobi do, of smoke, metal and earth.

Within a minute, both dog and human had reached the location of the particular ninken who had picked up a scent, which was Uhei, who wore the bandages. She grinned and gave him a few of the dog treats that Temari had saw earlier before she had summoned the ninken and given her a very funny look.

"It's getting faint, so they're probably about 5-6 hours away at a slow to medium pace. But if you kicked it up a few notches, you could reach them in about 2 hours tops. There's definitely at least 12 of them with decently strong chakras. You should be right with your team though." Pakkun confirmed with his gruff voice.

She didn't make it obvious that she noticed, and sent one of the other dogs back to get the rest of the team while she fed the others. Within a few minutes, they all came over and we're relieved to know that the ninken had picked up a trail.

And with that, they set out at full speed with the dogs leading the way...

2 hours later, they were informed by Pakkun that the group was only a few kilometres ahead. Instantly, they all slipped into work mode and they began to form a large line that would hopefully encircle and outflank their opponent. Chakras were masked, presences hidden and Hitori's Kage Oni jutsu activated subconsciously and when it did, all the ninja disappeared.

The technology department had cooperated with the medic nin to develop a tag that when connected to a shinobi, would have the same effects cast on them when Hitori activated her Kage Oni jutsu. The tag connected their chakras so that Hitori could almost synchronise with them and hide them in shadow.

When they got close enough to keep the trail on their own, the dogs disappeared with a whispered thanks from Hitori and a promise to spoil them later when she got back. Slowly, the team began moving out further and the outer links began speeding up to hopefully head around and surround the group.

Firstly, the circle was absolutely massive, almost a kilometre in diameter, but that was the point. They planned to have the shinobi at the front slow down to a stop and confront them while the others at the back and side caught up and eventually joined in on the fight. It was going very well, and Hitori felt the chakras up ahead begin to disappear as if they had already noticed or suspected that someone was around.

Just ahead, she could see the group of shinobi, twelve, exactly as Pakkun said. They had all stopped and were looking around cautiously but confusedly. It seemed that they knew something was there, but they couldn't see or feel anything.

Her team looked around, being able to see each other, even though the jutsu was cast on them – something Hitori had only found out when they started using the tags – and with one nod from her, it was on.

They had planned for this to be silent and invisible assassination at it's peak. Complete perfection in the art of killing your opponent or target without them even knowing they had died until they awoke in whatever the afterlife held. Hitori's forte, in fact.

As the back of the circle slowly caught up, making sure to be silent as they went, they watched the four shinobi descend down the trees and two of them got close enough and flung kunai at the back of the necks of two shinobi and caught them before they hit the ground and made a noise, also shrouding them in the Kage Oni jutsu.

"Futon: Juha Sho!" one of the shinobi yelled loudly after noticing that two of his comrades completely gone, and blades of wind chakra went flinging in all directions. The ninja still weren't able to tell where they were, and Hitori planned on keeping it that way.

She just hoped that her team wouldn't get reckless because of their being hidden in shadow like they had done a few times in training. Temari stalked down the tree to her right as they joined the circle, and Kankuro to her left did the same.

Holding her concentration as much as she could while watching what everyone was doing from her high vantage point, she watched two more enemies being picked off at the sides. Temari was about to take one out when the shinobi that had cast the Futon jutsu earlier started making seals again that was for the same jutsu.

Unfortunately, Temari was close enough to him so that if he cast the jutsu in her direction, she would be hit. Badly. The blonde didn't seem to notice until the last second when the shinobi's chakra had been moulded and he was about to speak the name of the technique again.

Grey eyes darkened and widened as time seemed to slow almost to a stop, and before she knew it, she was just able to feel searing pain in her left shoulder and she felt herself slip into unconsciousness, if only for a moment, it was enough to break her concentration and reveal the location of each shinobi on her team.

At first, she didn't realise what had happened, and that she was injured at all, since the adrenalin just weakened the pain and distracted her so much that she didn't think of it. From then on, it was an all out fight to the death. Shuriken, kunai, and senbon went flying as well as fists, feet, knees and elbows, jutsu were used and their plan basically fell to pieces before their eyes. There was no way that they were going to get out of this without a damn hard fight.

When she finally come around, her shoulder started to hurt more, but she paid it no heed and tried to implement some sort of order amongst her team. They had organised so that if things didn't go right, she would use her chakra enhanced strength to make a small tremor, which would hopefully throw the opponent off balance just long enough for them to get the upper hand of the battle.

She dropped to the ground, and smashed her fist straight into the ground sending large cracks all through the earth and making the ground shake beneath them. One enemy shinobi was caught in one of the cracks and Hitori took his moment of being distracted to throw a single poisoned senbon to hit his jugular directly.

Luckily, since her jutsu came naturally to her, it wasn't much more of a stretch for her to reactive it, concealing everyone again and allowing them to stealthily take out the remaining enemies. After that, the fight wasn't kept up much longer.

Immediately after the adrenalin began to wear off she began to feel that searing pain again. She looked down at herself and saw that she was soaked with blood that was gushing out from her left shoulder. Medical skills kicked in without even thinking twice about it, and she began to heal the wound, feeling lucky that she would have enough chakra to heal it mostly, even after using her jutsu on fourteen other people.

Temari helped her sit down, and they rested until she was well enough to start back towards home. They had planned on crashing overnight in the small village instead of struggling on home with barely any rest, and after the way the battle had gone, injuries would need to be healed, so it was going to be necessary.

Kankuro was kind enough to carry her piggy-back all the way back to the village, not caring about the blood that soaked his shirt as well. She was in a complete daze most of the time, from losing so much blood and before she knew it, Temari was wiping most of the blood of her and changing her into a spare shirt so she didn't have to rest with bloodied sheets.

She didn't wake for 8 hours...

The trip home was hard, and slower than she had hoped, but Kankuro and Ashinami made sure to carry her the whole way so she could continue healing the horrendous wound that the Juha Sho jutsu had made on her.

Before she knew it, they were entering the gates to Suna, and Gaara was waiting for them, probably already been notified by border patrol that they were coming back in the village limits. His small smile at seeing them all back quickly turned into a blatant frown at seeing a paler than usual Hitori slumped over Kankuro's back.

"What's wrong?" he immediately questioned, his tone showing urgency.

"She's fine, just a pretty big wound on her shoulder she got from protecting Temari. I tell you what, it was the fastest thing I ever saw!" Kankuro exclaimed, and smirked at hearing a weak laugh from said black-haired woman who was clearly awake.

"Don't worry, I've been healing myself the whole way back. Just some more rest and I'll be good as new." Hitori reassured him, finally bothering to open her slightly dulled eyes and look at Gaara, who was clearly worried as hell.

He seemed to accept her words, and walked with them as the team went to the hospital to get themselves properly patched up with help from all the supplies that the two other medics couldn't carry with them.

Again, Hitori slept long and deeply, and awoke the next morning to see the top of Gaara's head resting on his arms on her bed. She ran a hand through his hair with her good side and he seemed to rouse quickly and turquoise eyes focused on the sight he had been worried he would never see again. Her silver-grey eyes, and mouth twisted into an awkward smile.

Beaming at her in his own way, he stood up and lent over her, gently brushing her hair out of her face and sighing with relief. She giggled sweetly and he brushed his nose against hers before pressing a soft 'I'm glad you're okay' kiss to her lips, which made her smile and giggle again.

"Is she awake yet Ga-...ara...?" Kankuro stepped into the room, obnoxiously as usual but stopping dead in his tracks and staring for a moment before chuckling nervously, turning around on one foot and literally marched out of the room, shutting the door behind him.

Both of them laughed a little, but paid not much attention to it, since they were both just glad that everything had worked out. While Hitori laid there, she told him about what had happened on the mission, how the fight went, and what happened when she got injured – which involved a lot of frustrated grumbling about people with Futon natured chakra and her bad luck with them – as well as whatever she remembered about the trip home.

After a while, he left her to rest a little more and in that time, Ashinami peeked his head through the door and smiled when he saw that she was awake. He scratched the back of his head and walked in, standing at the edge of her bed.

"How ya feeling?" he asked casually, but with a hint of concern.

"I'm fine. No need to worry about me, I'm the medic here. How about you?" she replied, chuckling a little when he rolled his eyes.

"Not a problem. I only had a few kunai slashes and a bit of a burn. I'll tell you what, Kankuro was right when he said that you saving Temari was the fastest thing ever. It was almost like the Yellow Flash, but black!" he commented with awe decorating his voice.

"Don't compare me to Yondaime, idiot." Hitori laughed a little more, and shook her head before telling him to go get some rest, even though she just wanted to get some sleep.

Less than 3 minutes after he had gone, and with her thoughts revolving how glad she was that the mission went well, and still being pissed off over her luck with Futon jutsu, she fell asleep.

Two weeks later...

"Gaara, just sign off this shit first. I need to send it to Naruto so he can- eep!" Hitori pestered, while her sort of Kazekage lover nuzzled her neck affectionately as he tried to lead her to his office door so that they could go home since it was 5pm, while she resisted so he would sign off these few pieces of paper work that could be sent away immediately.

Apparently, whenever it was 5pm exactly, it was immediately time for him to go home nowadays. Although that was probably just because of the woman that had done more than just catch his attention. She had him wrapped around her little finger, and he knew it. But he was feeling particularly stubborn today, and had decided not to listen to her for a particular reason that she would discover when they got home.

Naruto would probably find it hilarious if the reason why his documents were late was because of this. Hell, he would probably egg Gaara on. Both of them knew that as well, so Gaara didn't care, and Hitori just felt like making him earn it.

After a few minutes of play wrestling in his office, she finally let him win, and they put on their 'casual-as-can-be' masks – even though everyone would have to be stupid not to pick up on their relationship - before strolling out the door and through the village until they arrived back at their home. All the lights were off, and she could smell something absolutely wonderful coming from the dining room.

She eyed him curiously, wondering if he was up to something, and the look on his face that he just couldn't hide from her confirmed it. The little sneaky bugger was up to something...just finding out what was the problem.

Without another thought, she disappeared into thin air and resisted the urge to crack up laughing when his shoulders slumped, and his expression dead panned into complete shock. Not wasting any more time, she dashed straight to the dining room to see the fanciest meal she had ever laid eyes on, right in front of her. There was bits and pieces of so many different types of food, and she was sure that this alone would be worth a lot of money.

Trying to glare, she released her jutsu and waited until Gaara casually strolled in the room, knowing that he was going to cop it for doing this. Not really for spending so much money on it all, but more or less just for embarrassing the crap out of her.

He just walked over and pulled a chair out on one side of the table and gestured for her to sit down. She couldn't really say no when those beautiful smells were just begging her to eat the food in front of her, and so, she sat down, and watched as he went around the other side of the table and sat down.

Gaara just smiled disarmingly at her, even though she was trying to glare at him, and the pale woman had to look down so that maybe he wouldn't see her blushing like crazy, even though he would have known anyway. Instead of telling him not to do this kind of thing, she just decided to be happy that he wanted to do something so kind for her and enjoy it while it lasted. She smiled back after looking up, and then it was his turn to look away from her to hide a blush.

They both enjoyed an amazing dinner and conversation filled any gap that it could fit in. They talked about everything from books, to weaponry, to politics and even art. All in all it was an amazing night and Hitori was so flattered that Gaara had gone to so much effort for her, and Gaara was just so happy that Hitori had enjoyed it.

At about 10.30pm, they decided to retire for the night, and after showering, they both climbed into bed, thoroughly happy with how their day had gone. They talked a little while longer, but sooner or later just after Gaara had laid an arm over her waist, and pressed a light kiss to her shoulder, the woman who had caught his attention from the moment he laid eyes on her, as she was checking bodies for her katana.

Soon enough, he couldn't keep his eyes off her, with her pale skin that contrasted so much with her jet black hair, and those vibrant silvery eyes of hers. She had managed to lure him in without doing anything at all, and he didn't know how it ended up that he had her in his arms now, but he certainly wasn't going to complain...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I really hope you enjoyed the story :)

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter glossary -  
> 1\. Imono - Cast, metal, casting  
> 2\. Wakizashi - It's a type of sword that's a little shorter than a normal katana. Google it for more info...  
> 3\. Hitori - Alone, one person (Thought I'd chuck that in for those of you who haven't read my other Naruto fic)  
> 4\. Onigiri - A ball of rice, to put it simply. Again, Google...  
> 5\. Suna/Sunagakure - Village Hidden in The Sand  
> 6\. Godaime - Fifth  
> 7\. Takigakure - Village Hidden in a Waterfall  
> 8\. Amegakure - Village Hidden in the Rain  
> 9\. Sokkenai - Cold, blunt, short  
> 10\. Sabaku no Gaara - Gaara of the Sand Waterfall/Gaara of the Desert  
> 11\. Yondaime - Fourth


End file.
